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Theo James is speaking out about his fears of raising his son amid the toxic masculinity culture that he says is perpetuated by Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Capitalism is the dominant force and you are celebrated, no matter what you are, if you are stinking rich and driving around in flash cars [that] has been epitomized by Trumpism and everything that goes with that,” The White Lotus actor said on Wednesday’s episode of Josh Smith’s Great Chat Show podcast.
“It’s terrifying having a son because people get lured into this idea very easily,” he said about misogyny brought on by incel culture and, more recently, the manosphere. He added, “Men who feel they need to be performative or misogynistic may not feel good enough.”
The British actor continued: “You don’t have to be ‘hyperwoke,’ but it’s about a base level of empathy and some semblance of morality. I think now that isn’t cool. It’s not cool to talk about those things. It’s cool to be like, ‘F*** you, I earn loads of cash.’ But, at the end of the day, there’s a deep emptinessiness within that as we all know and eventually all those people will find out.”
James, 41, has a son who was born in 2023 and a daughter who was born in 2021 with his wife, actor Ruth Kearney. The British star and his family split their time between their homes in London and Los Angeles.
He went on to say that he is doing his part to combat unhealthy ideologies by prioritizing mental health in his own relationships, saying: “I try and have conversations with my friends and be open about mental health and if you’re struggling with things. I think it’s super important because mental health affects a lot of men.”
James said that oftentimes, toxic masculinity stems from men having “unclear identity.”
“They feel untethered, reduced,” he said during Wednesday’s episode. “I think the misogyny comes from lots of successful, strong women around them. They don’t know how to deal with that.”
He added, “They’re confused by who they are or who they should be, and the easiest thing to do is to latch on to something [whether it’s] money, going to the gym a lot of telling people to ‘go f*** themselves.’ That’s easy.”
James’s comments come as the manosphere, notoriously exemplified by the influencer Andrew Tate, has become a popular topic of discourse with the release of Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere documentary.
Last month, a parenting expert told The Independent that hypermasculinity in men can often begin with sons who have damaged relationships with their dads.
