Barry Keoghan has been open and honest about his difficult childhood and the fact that abuse from fans gets to him. The last we reported on him was in December, 2024, when he deactivated his Instagram account due to online and in-person harassment after his breakup from Sabrina Carpenter. There’s a lot of pressure for actors to promote themselves online but it’s got to be difficult to manage the mean and pointed comments they get. Add in a popular singer’s rabid fanbase and I’m sure it can be overwhelming.
Barry is promoting his role in Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man and he’s also playing Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes’s upcoming three-part Beatles series, filming now. In a recent interview with Ben Harlum on Sirius XM, Barry admitted that he often stays home due to all the hate he gets. He’s also questioning his choice of a career. Here’s some of what he said and the video is below:
Ben Harlum: You’re from a small town and then now you’re thrust into an Oscar nomination… people are paying more attention to you. Do you have places you can go where you can just sit and be a normal person, where you can get a bit of privacy?
Barry: I’ve been blessed that I’ve got an incredible fan base and people are so lovely out there. It’s really nice when you do Q&As and you talk to people and you can be there with them… that is the good side of it. There is also a nasty side of it. I removed myself from online but I’m still a curious human being. It I attend an event or if I go somewhere, you want to see how it was received. It’s not nice. There’s a lot of hate online, it’s a lot of abuse of how I look.
It’s kind of past the point of like you know ‘everyone goes through that,’ and everyone does, but it’s made me shy away. It’s made me really go inside myself, not want to attend places, not want to go outside. It’s becoming a problem. I don’t have to hide away cause I am hiding away. I actually don’t go to places because of these things. When that starts leaking into your art, it becomes a problem, because then you don’t want to you don’t want to even be on screen anymore.
That’s really sad and a testament to the awful state of the Internet lately. A lot of actors are opting out of social media, which is smart, and others wisely turn off comments. They also have to guard their privacy so they’re less vulnerable to stalkers and predators. Even everyday non-influencer people viral for having opinions and get attacked. I like Barry, his vulnerability is part of his appeal as an actor. I hope he can get the help he needs. There’s got to be a way he can protect his peace and continue making art. Admitting that it’s a problem for him is the first step.
Photos credit: Robert Viglasky/Netflix, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·