Oscar-nominated actor Barry Keoghan has said online abuse about his appearance is affecting his life, to the point that he now does “not want to go outside”.
The Irish actor, who is playing Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles tetralogy, told SiriusXM host Ben Harlum that though he left social media in 2024 due to online abuse, it was still so bad that he was “shying away” from the public eye – and it was making him want to retreat from acting.
Asked about his fans, Keoghan acknowledged that some “people are so lovely out there”, but added: “There’s also a nasty side of it. And I’ve removed myself from online, but I’m still a curious human being that wants to go on. And if I attend an event or if I go somewhere, you want to see how it was received. And it’s not nice, you know?”
“There’s a lot of hate online. 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. It’s made me really go inside myself, not want to attend places, not want to go outside. And I say this being absolute pure and honest to you – it’s becoming a problem,” he said.
Keoghan said he is now “hiding away” due the abuse.
“I actually don’t go to places because of these things,” he added. “But when that starts leaking into your art, it becomes a problem, because then you don’t want to even be on screen any more.”
In 2024, Keoghan, who has been candid about his difficult childhood in foster care and the death of his mother after struggling with drug addiction, accused people of knocking on his grandmother’s door and “sitting outside my baby boy’s house intimidating them” after his breakup with pop star Sabrina Carpenter.
Speaking to SiriusXM, Keoghan acknowledged that a retreat from acting would be disappointing for his fans, but, referring to his three-year-old son Brando, added: “It’s also disappointing that my little boy has to read all of this stuff when he gets older.”
Keoghan’s latest role is in Netflix’s Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. He has recently been filming his part in Mendes’ The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinematic Event, alongside Harris Dickinson, Paul Mescal and Joseph Quinn as John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison respectively.