Barry Keoghan has confessed that he’s taken a step back from acting because of the immense “online hate” he’s received.
The 33-year-old actor spoke about the drawbacks of being in the public eye during Friday’s episode of SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up radio show, highlighting how negative comments about his appearance have made him withdraw from all aspects of public life.
“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 shared his concerns about how the negative comments made about him online will one day impact his three-year-old child, Brando, whom he shares with 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.”
After calling out critics who dragged his character, he criticized them for breaking boundaries, such as by knocking on his grandmother’s door and sitting outside the home where his son lives.
“That’s crossing a line,” he said.
“Each and every day I work hard to push myself on every level to be the healthiest and strongest person for that boy. I want to provide opportunities for him to learn, fail and grow. I want him to be able to look up to his daddy, to have full trust in me and know I will have his back no matter what. I need you to remember he has to read ALL of this about his father when he is older.”
