Barry Keoghan publicly denied cheating on Sabrina Carpenter during a podcast released on Tuesday, 28 April, telling Benny Blanco's Friends Keep Secrets show that online rumours about their December 2024 split were 'not true' and had driven him to disappear from public life, Ok Magazine reports.
The Irish actor, 33, and Carpenter, 26, had dated for about a year and starred together in her 'Please Please Please' music video before quietly ending their relationship.
Speculation around Barry Keoghan and Sabrina Carpenter intensified late last year when reports of their break-up surfaced alongside claims that he had been unfaithful to influencer Breckie Hill.
At the time, People magazine quoted an unnamed source saying the pair were 'both young and career-focused' and had decided to 'take a break,' with neither Keoghan nor Carpenter addressing the cheating allegations directly. That silence left space for social media to fill in the gaps, often with little regard for evidence.
On the Friends Keep Secrets podcast, Keoghan gave his first extended account of what happened to him in the fallout. He said he effectively retreated from public life as accusations swirled online.
'I came off Instagram and social profiles, I stopped going to events, I've stopped socialising,' he told host Benny Blanco. He described feeling hemmed in by a storyline he says he never recognised. 'It's because there was a narrative out there that was never really sort of ever being spoken on a narrative that's not true, or I never confirmed or said anything about it.'
Pressed by co-host Lil Dicky on what, exactly, he was alleged to have done, Keoghan replied simply, 'That I cheated.' The actor, who has a son from a previous relationship, did not name Carpenter, but the context of the conversation and timing of the claims made clear what he was referring to.
Barry Keoghan, Sabrina Carpenter And A Rumour That Wouldn't Die
The news came after months in which Barry Keoghan and Sabrina Carpenter tried to keep their romance unusually low-key for two people whose careers depend on visibility.
They were first linked publicly in 2023, then leant into the attention when Keoghan appeared as her chaotic onscreen partner in the high-profile Please Please Please video, while Carpenter's hit Espresso pushed her further into global pop stardom.
By December 2024, however, the narrative had flipped. Gossip accounts began circulating claims that Keoghan had been involved with Breckie Hill around the time of the split, turning an already intrusive break-up into a full-blown morality play.
The speed at which that version of events hardened into supposed fact clearly still rankles Keoghan.
On the podcast, he argued that the real problem was less his behaviour than the pressures of having a relationship in full view of fans and detractors.
'I don't ever want to bring anyone else into it,' he said, 'but unfortunately having a relationship in the public eye we all know this from our own stories, but it gets put out there, and it's amplified.'
The word 'amplified' does a lot of work here. A single TikTok or Instagram post can now spin into a global story within hours, long before anyone involved has a chance to respond.
In Keoghan's case, he suggested, that meant one unverified claim picked up traction while the eventual correction went largely unnoticed.
Influencer At Centre Of Barry Keoghan, Sabrina Carpenter Story Denies Affair
Keoghan pointed out that the original cheating allegation had already been contradicted by Breckie Hill herself. 'If you see the narrative, you see the story, a girl made a video, and then a girl made a video and said 'sorry for making that up,' he said. 'But no one seemed to latch onto that video.'
Hill, who became entangled in the Barry Keoghan and Sabrina Carpenter discourse without, she says, ever meeting him, had tried to shut things down in a clip of her own.
'To put it simply for you all, no, I did not get with Barry,' she said. 'I have never even encountered this man in my life. The only time I've seen him is on my TV screen from watching Saltburn.'
Despite that, the earlier, more sensational allegation continued to circulate. Keoghan told the podcast he chose not to wade in at the time, arguing that speaking out might have made things worse for the influencer who had started the speculation.
'She's seen the reaction, this girl, and I didn't want to come forward and put that girl under because again, I don't know how she deals with it, so I'm aware of that,' he said.
What is clear is that both Barry Keoghan and Sabrina Carpenter have thrown themselves into work since their split. Carpenter's career has accelerated further; this month, she took the Coachella main stage and was joined by Madonna on 17 April for a widely shared rendition of Like A Prayer, a moment that underscored just how fast she has climbed into pop's top tier.
Keoghan, meanwhile, has locked in two heavyweight roles. He is currently filming a four-part Beatles biopic slated for release in 2028 and is set to reprise his take on The Joker in The Batman: Part II, scheduled for 2027.
