Barry Keoghan has been opening up about being a dad to his son, Brando.
The Love/Hate actor welcomed his little one into the world with his ex-girlfriend Alyson Kierans in August 2022.
Since Barry’s rise to fame following The Banshees of Inisherin and Saltburn, many social media users have claimed he is an ‘absent dad’.
Now, Barry has decided to address these claims, admitting he’s got ‘tough skin’ when it comes to reading online hate.
During an interview on The Louis Theroux Podcast, Keoghan spoke about his difficult upbringing, where he grew up in foster care after his mum passed away following drug addiction.
He went on to explain how his childhood affects the way he parents his son since he doesn’t have a ‘blueprint’ on how to navigate fatherhood.
“People then have a judgement on me as a parent. I’m like, ‘Well until you’ve walked a day in my shoes growing up as a kid, then you can comment’".
"There’s a lot online. If I didn’t have tough skin or the strength I have, I wouldn’t be sitting here”.
“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.’ I’m not an absent father”.
“But it’s just, again, people love to use my son as ammunition or whatever.”
Barry went on to reveal why he’s deleted images of Brando from his Instagram account and explained why he rarely posts with him anymore.
“The more attention I’ve got 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. There’s sick people out there”.
The 32-year-old continued, “And because I reigned that in, people draw a narrative and go, ‘Absent father, sh*t, 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”.