Barry Keoghan says online abuse about his appearance makes him not want to leave the house
Barry Keoghan has said that he doesn’t want to go outside anymore due to the severity of the online abuse he faces in relation to his appearance.
The Irish actor revealed the extent of his struggles during a recent interview on SiriusXM with Ben Harlum, where he said that the constant stream of negative comments directed towards him led to his departure from social media in 2024.
While acknowledging that certain “people are so lovely out there”, Keoghan said: “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?”
Moving to discuss how this abuse has affected him personally, especially in situations where hateful comments have been made about his appearance, the actor continued: “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.”
He added: “It’s made me really go inside myself, not want to attend places, not want to go outside. And I say this being absolutely pure and honest to you – it’s becoming a problem.”
Keoghan then admitted that he has stopped going to certain events and occasions because of the abuse, noting that it increasingly becomes problematic when it makes him not “want to even be on screen any more.”
Despite this, Keoghan is in the midst of some of the most major roles of his career so far, having starred in the new Peaky Blinders film The Immortal Man, and is currently in the process of filming for Sam Mendes’ Beatles biopics, where he plays Ringo Starr.
While he is set to continue appearing in films for the foreseeable future because of this, the Banshees of Inisherin star said that online abuse not only poses an issue for his own mental health, but for its impact on his three-year-old son.
“It’s also disappointing that my little boy has to read all of this stuff when he gets older,” Keoghan said, after Starr’s son Zak Starkey previously criticised the casting of the actor to play his father in the Beatles biopics.
“Get a big rubber nose,” Starkey said to NME when asked for any advice for Keoghan. “I don’t know what else to say. He doesn’t look anything like my dad, does he? You can fix anything, can’t you? You can certainly give someone a big rubber nose,” he added.
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