NEWSBarry Keoghan Declares He Is 'Not an Absent Father' as Actor Grows 'Furious' With People 'Attacking' Him as a Dad: 'It Sickens Me'
Barry Keoghan shares his 2-year-old son, Brando, with ex Alyson Kierans.
Barry Keoghan has grown tired of defending his presence as a father.
The famed Irish actor, 32, clapped back at haters degrading the role that matters most to him: Being a dad to his 2-year-old son, Brando, whom he shares with ex-girlfriend Alyson Kierans.
Barry Keoghan has only one child.
During a guest appearance on the Tuesday, November 5, episode of "The Louis Theroux Podcast," Keoghan candidly opened up to host Louis Theroux about his troubled upbringing while squashing accusations he's not involved in his toddler's life.
"If I didn't have tough skin or the strength to have, I wouldn't be sitting here," confessed the Saltburn star — who was tossed around more than 10 foster homes as a kid in Dublin before eventually being raised by his grandmother after his mom died from drug addiction when he was 12.
Brando Keoghan was born in October 2022.
Keoghan said his childhood still "kind of haunts" him and is "of course 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.' I'm not an absent father,'" he declared. "Just the audacity of some people, man. It sickens me, makes me furious. I've been off it [social media] because when I'm going through a role, I'm getting into character. I stay away from the internet."
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Alyson Kierans split from Barry Keoghan in 2023.
"But, again, when I've got a bit of time, I am a curious being like all of us and you want to know what [people are saying online] especially when it's slander and when it's bad comments attacking my appearance or attacking me as a father," Keoghan, who split from his son's mom in the middle of 2023, explained to the British-American journalist.
The Batman actor said he's simply "just trying to make a living, trying to get a good body of work and create safety for my child."
Recalling his late mom, Keoghan gushed over how "gorgeous" she was, describing her as an "almost like six-foot" woman with "dark hair, just beautiful" until drug addiction "caught her."
"It's sad to see the deterioration of people around the area and see people kind of struggle with it and the recovery they're in now," The Banshees of Inisherin actor expressed. "It caught my mum, it caught my uncle who died of it and caught my father as well."
The exes share one child togheter.
Regarding his time in foster care, Keoghan — who is said to be in an "on again, off again" relationship with pop star Sabrina Carpenter — admitted: "You don't forget waiting on the social worker steps and waiting for the new family to come and play with you in the playground they have in the office and see if it's going to work and then go with them to a whole new area and a whole new home."
While his mom falling victim to substance abuse was upsetting, frustrating and everything between, Keoghan said he doesn't "blame" his mother, noting, "it's a sickness."
