Barry Keoghan hits back over ‘disgusting’ online abuse
By Jack Guy, CNN
(CNN) — Irish actor Barry Keoghan has retaliated against what he describes as “inhumane” online trolling and accused people of intimidating his family.
In a lengthy statement published on X on Saturday after deactivating his Instagram account, the “Saltburn” star said he could “only sit and take so much.”
“My name has been dragged across the internet in ways I usually don’t respond to. I have to respond now because it’s gettin to a place where there are too many lines being crossed. I can no longer let this stuff distract from my family and my work,” he wrote.
Keoghan, who is known for his Oscar-nominated role in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” grew up in Dublin, Ireland, living in several different foster homes and with his grandmother as his mother was addicted to heroin.
She died when he was 12, and his father died when he was 15. Critics have also taken aim at Keoghan’s role as a father to 2-year-old son Brando, whom he shares with an ex-partner.
“The messages I have received no person should ever have to read them. Absolute lies, hatred, disgusting commentary about my appearance, character, how I am as a parent and every other inhumane thing you can imagine,” said Keoghan.
“Talking about how I was a heroin baby and how I grew up and dragging my dear mother into it also,” he added.
Keoghan said people had been “knocking on my grannies door” and “sitting outside my baby boy’s house intimidating them. That’s crossing a line.”
While this latest flare-up came in the wake of the reported end of his relationship with American singer Sabrina Carpenter, this is not the first time Keoghan has raised the issue.
He spoke extensively about the damaging impact of online trolling in a wide-ranging interview on “The Louis Theroux Podcast” released in November.
“People kind of have a judgment on me as a parent,” Keoghan said at the time.
“I’m like, well until you’ve walked a day in my shoes growing up as a kid, then you can comment… There’s a lot online. If I didn’t have tough skin or the strength I have, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he added.
“Of course it’s going to affect me being a father when I had no blueprint to take from.”
“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, there’s sick people out there,” said Keoghan.
“And because I’ve reined that in, people draw a narrative and go ‘absent father, sh*t deadbeat dad’ and more disgusting things that I wouldn’t even repeat. Just the audacity of some people, man, it sickens me and makes me furious.”
He spoke in a similar vein about the trolls who comment on his appearance, “especially on TikTok… people can sit there and make videos and be like ‘I don’t like his face, he looks weird, or he looks evil’ and just pick you apart.”
CNN’s Issy Ronald contributed to this report.
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