Barry Keoghan addresses comments about him being a 'deadbeat dad': 'I'm not an absent father'

Barry Keoghan is taking no nonsense on comments about him being a “deadbeat” dad to his two-year-old son. 

Speaking to Louis Theroux on the latter’s Nov. 5 podcast, the 32-year-old actor opened up about how comments about his parenting to his first child, Brando, whom he shares with ex-girlfriend, Alyson Sandro.  

"There’s a lot online. If I didn’t have tough skin or the strength I have, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” he began, sharing that he himself didn’t have a father figure growing up. 

“Of course, it's 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,’” he continued. 

"I’m not an absent father,” he stressed. 

The Saltburn star said how such comments have led him to protect his child's privacy by avoiding social media posts.

“People love to use my son as kind of ammunition or whatever, and it kind of leads me to stop [posting him.] The more attention I’ve gotten 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 explained, adding, “Just sick people out there." 

However, he shared that this move also led the public to assume he is a “deadbeat” dad. 

"Because I reigned that in, people draw a narrative and go, ‘Absent father, s---, deadbeat dad,’ and more disgusting things I wouldn’t even repeat. Just the audacity of some people, man, it sickens me. It makes me furious,” Barry said. 

He furthered that "these people have no indication" of him as a father and stressed that he is not "going to feed them more material, like, ‘I’m with my child or not,’ they don't deserve that." 

Barry welcomed his son in August 2022 while filming Saltburn, for which he earned a nomination for best actor at the Golden Globes and British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA).  

"It was probably the best time of my life, to be fair. Havin' a baby boy, and leadin' a movie. It was the best time of my life, I must say,” he previously said in his interview with GQ. 

He shared a selfie with Brando in August, while the latter played with toys on the table. 

Apart from Saltburn, Barry is also known for his roles in The Banshees in Inisherin, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Calm with Horses, among others. 

He is now being romantically linked with actress-singer Sabrina Carpenter.