Barry Keoghan has responded to rumours online accusing him of being an ‘absent father’, as well as the cruel comments that he is a ‘deadbeat dad’.
The Irish actor opened up on the topic on the newest episode of Louis Theroux’s Spotify podcast.
Keoghan is doing the media rounds in promotion of his new film Bird, which releases in the UK on November 8.
The movie was one of the big surprises coming out of the festival circuit, with British GQ calling for Keoghan to get his second Oscar nomination for the role.
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Despite this, focus has now shifted to accusations Keoghan is an ‘absent father’ that have circulated online.
Keoghan has a child named Brando with his ex-partner Alyson Sandro, who was born in 2022 when the pair were still together.
While they split in 2023, Keoghan has been effusive with his praise of her as a mother since.
But rumours that he was not involved in Brando’s life soon began, and were supercharged when Sandro liked a comment on Instagram that said: “More appreciation for mothers raising their kids practically by themselves. My mom was my hero!!! You're already his hero too."
This came a day after Keoghan first posted publicly about his relationship to popstar Sabrina Carpenter.
Regarding the rumours and comments, Keoghan said to Theroux in the new podcast episode: “There's a lot online. If I didn't have tough skin or the strength to have, I wouldn't be sitting here.
“Of course, [his childhood is] going to affect me being a father when I had no blueprint to take from. People just read that [as] laziness and go, ‘Oh, that's no excuse to be an absent father'.
“I'm not an absent father.”
This comment relates to quotes from Keoghan earlier this year, in which he said to Entertainment Weekly: “I didn't have a father figure growing up, so even my relationship with my son isn't quite of the normal father-son relationship because I don't have that figure to draw experience from and to base it on.
He went on to say: “Love, you don't need anything to draw from, love is pure, and so I'm not on about that, but I'm on about little stuff like teaching your son this or teaching your daughter that.”
This led to those saying he was a ‘deadbeat’ to interpret this as him excusing a perceived lack of involvement in his son's life.
He went on to tell Theroux: “People love to use my son as ammunition or whatever.
“It kind of leads me to stop, the more attention I've got lately and the more in the public I've become, the less I've posted about my child, because I don't think it's fair to put my child online.”
He later said in the interview: “Because I reigned that in, people draw a narrative and go ‘absent father, sh*t, deadbeat dad,’ and more disgusting things I wouldn't even repeat.
“Just the audacity of some people, man. It sickens me, makes me furious.”
In the interview, Keoghan also opened up about his mum’s battles with heroin addiction, his father not being in his life growing up, and growing up in foster care.
He told Theroux regarding growing up in foster care: “That kind of haunts me still, you don't forget those things”.
The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.
Topics: Barry Keoghan, Louis Theroux, Oscars, Sabrina Carpenter, Celebrity
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