Barry Keoghan has said online abuse about his appearance has had a significant impact on his life, making him reluctant to go out in public.
The Irish actor, 33 – who is set to play Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes’s four-film Beatles biopic – told SiriusXM host Ben Harlum that persistent negative comments have led him to withdraw “inside myself” and even question his future in acting.
“There’s a lot of abuse of how I look, and it’s kind of past the point of ‘everyone goes through that’ and everyone does, but it’s made me shy away,” he admitted. “It’s made me go inside myself and not want to attend places. Not want to go outside.
“I think I remove myself from online, but I’m still a curious human being that wants to go on,” he explained. “If I attend an event or if I go somewhere, you want to see how it was received. It’s not nice, you know, there’s a lot of hate online.”
He continued: “I don’t have to hide away because I am hiding away. I don’t have to go to places because I actually don’t go to places because of these things.
“But when that starts leaking into your art, it becomes a problem because then you don’t even want to be on screen anymore.”
The Saltburn star added that the way online bullying has affected him is “becoming a problem”.
Keoghan also expressed concern about how the negative comments directed at him online could one day affect his three-year-old son, Brando, whom he shares with his ex, Alyson Sandro.
“It’s disappointing to the fans, but it’s also disappointing that my little boy has to read all of this stuff when he gets older,” he added.
The Banshees of Inisherin star has previously hit back at the hate he’s received online. In December 2024, he urged people in a post on X to “be respectful”, following the criticism he received about his split from singer Sabrina Carpenter.
“I can only sit and take so much. My name has been dragged across the internet in ways I usually don’t respond too,” he wrote at the time. “I have to respond now because it’s getting to a place where there are too many lines being crossed.”
“I deactivated my account because I can no longer let this stuff distract from my family and my work,” he continued. “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.”
Keoghan currently appears in Netflix’s newly released Peaky Blinders film, The Immortal Man, as Erasmus “Duke” Shelby, Tommy Shelby’s (Cillian Murphy) son. He has recently been filming his role in Sam Mendes’ new project “The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinematic Event”, starring alongside Harris Dickinson, Paul Mescal and Joseph Quinn, who play John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, respectively.
