Emotional Barry Keoghan says he became recluse after Sabrina Carpenter ‘cheating’ claims saw vicious trolls bombard him
WITH a rocketing career and A-list girlfriend Sabrina Carpenter on his arm, Barry Keoghan had the world at his feet in 2024.
But after his relationship soured — amid false claims the actor cheated — he was so badly burned by the fallout that he has become a recluse.
Barry has quit all social media, stopped seeing his mates and has even moved house — all while internet trolls continue to hurl insults his way.
The strife all stems from a rumour that he had an affair while seeing Espresso singer Sabrina, 26, which she herself has said was false.
Saltburn actor Barry, 33, who is currently filming the upcoming Beatles biopics as Ringo Starr, said: “I have been avoiding stuff.
“I’ve stopped socialising. And again, it’s because there was a narrative that’s not true.
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“I never confirmed or said anything about it, and, you know, I just disappeared.”
Pushed on what that narrative is, he continued: “It’s that I cheated.
“I don’t want to ever bring anyone else into it, but unfortunately having a relationship in the public eye, we all know this, it gets put out there, and it’s amplified.
“A girl made a video and then the girl actually made [another] video and went, ‘Sorry for making that up’, but no one seemed to latch on to that video.”
Gossip site DeuxMoi and social media influencers had claimed he was seen at a members’ club and steakhouse with another blonde woman while he was dating Sabrina.
Fans believed he had cheated with influencer Breckie Hill, although she insisted it was untrue and that they had never even met.
Barry now says that despite deleting his accounts, he is still drawn to the vicious things people write about him online, almost 18 months after his year-long romance with the chart-topper ended.
He explained: “I’m not on Instagram or Twitter or any of that but I still go on and have a little . . . I go on my brother’s account. I can access it that way.
“I do go on and have a look because I’m curious, but there’s a lot of hatred towards me for just looking like this. It’s just crazy.
“There’s videos on TikTok that literally go, ‘I hate him’.
“I went through addiction myself and then sobriety, and to battle all of that, to then want to drag that person down . . . ”
Sabrina did little to suppress the online noise against him when she released her No1 album Man’s Best Friend last August — on which she sang about dating a “manchild”.
And Barry says he struggled in the aftermath, as he did not want her to have to deny the cheating rumours following their split.
He explained: “It’s a hard one because I never want to speak on behalf of other people. And I also never want to mention other people or involve them.
“And even if it is those people that were in a relationship, it’s not their place to come forward and speak on my behalf.
“It’s unfair to them. They’re also in a relationship. It’s both of us being out there, so I’m very aware of that.”
Barry, who hails from Dublin, said he has even relocated from London to the Oxfordshire town of Henley-on-Thames due to the mental toll events have taken on him.
But it is fair to say he has faced plenty of other challenges in his life, having largely grown up in foster homes.
His mum died when he was 12 after years spent battling a drug addiction.
Now, speaking on the Friends Keep Secrets podcast, Barry has talked about how he fell into a similar spiral of addiction and has only managed to overcome his substance dependence in recent years.
Barry said: “I’m clean now. But my mum died at 32 from heroin and my dad passed away. But the curiosity of still wanting to do this, for me, was absolutely . . .
“It took me three attempts at rehab and it was finally Malibu, The Pointe, where there was a sudden switch and it was when I was 32, the same age my mum was. Like, ‘That’s it, I’m not doing it’.”
Asked if he ever drinks now, he added: “I don’t do anything.
“I used to try to justify it by going, ‘Maybe I’ll be off the drink for a while’, but now I like to think I’m allergic to alcohol because my reaction is: Cocaine. That reaction can make me die.”
And he claims he actually has died — and was brought back to life — in 2021 due to being high on drugs.
He was hit by a bottle in a pub and developed the rare bacterial infection necrotising fasciitis.
Barry explained: “This is a flesh-eating bacteria infection that I got and almost died.
“I got it right before I filmed the movie Banshees Of Inisherin and literally, I got it three weeks beforehand. I got it because I went through psychosis.
“An event happened and I got hit with a bottle, and something happened to my arm. It went to my blood system and whatever. But it’s a very rare infection.
“This basically eats your limbs and they have to remove it.
“I technically did die for a few seconds.”
He went on to deliver an outstanding performance in The Banshees Of Inisherin, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars.
But the infection was so touch-and-go that he even believes he had a “post-death vision”.
He said: “I did. I swear to you, it was almost like a f***ing painting. It happened in London. I went for a few seconds and there was this sort of image. There was this girl walking away and she wouldn’t look back.
“She had blonde hair, but she was walking away and I kept calling her.
“She just kept walking and I wanted to see who it was.
“It was almost like she was walking away to get me to follow.
“On this side was council flats, it was black and white, and this side was in colour.
“On this side, there was loads of lads stabbing me and trying to push me over and, obviously, it was the doctors doing the work on me, you know, that’s what I was feeling.
“But in this vision, they were stabbing me and pushing me, and I was holding on to them, and they were trying to push me over to this side.
“I swear, I was begging them that I could stay. I said, ‘Please let me stay’.”
In 2022 he was arrested in Dublin for public intoxication. Months later he became a dad to a little boy with partner Alyson Kierans, a dental nurse. But they split in mid-2023.
Later that year, he got together with Sabrina, and gained mainstream success in the dark comedy Saltburn.
That led to an outpouring of love and support, which no doubt helped him land his next role — and the most important one of his career so far.
He is playing Beatles drummer Ringo in the four-film cinematic biopic being created by director Sam Mendes.
Asked about how he is finding work on the project, which is halfway through a year-long filming schedule, he said: “I’m loving it.”
He will appear alongside Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.
However, Barry revealed the tight work schedule is having a major affect on his body — and he has lost a stone since the cameras started rolling.
He said: “I’ve lost so much weight on this movie. I was 65 or 66 kilos and I’m like 58 kilos now. But it’s because of my ADHD meds as well.
“No one tells you to lose weight and I don’t need to lose it for Ringo either. But it’s more of getting into character and the stamina.
“Movies usually last six or seven weeks and I always lose weight by the end, but by that time I’m gone. But this one’s a year.”
He is expected to spend the majority of this year finishing the movies, before they hit screens in April 2028.
And hopefully by that time, at least, he will feel able to leave the house with his head held high.
