Barry Keoghan opens up about battling addiction after losing both parents
Barry Keoghan opened up about his battle with drug addiction despite losing his parents to it when he was young.
The Saltburn star got real about his struggles with sobriety, saying that despite losing both of his parents to it and the birth of his son, Brando, his curiosity with drugs still got the better of him.
"I’m not in denial anymore. I understand that I do have an addiction, and I am an addict,” Keoghan said in his interview with Hollywood Authentic. "You know, when you accept that, you finally can move on, and learn to work with it.”
“My father passed away as a result of similar and I lost my mum to it. I’ve lost two uncles and a cousin to drugs. That should be enough to go, ‘OK, if I dabble here, I’m f****ed.’ But your curiosity is a powerful thing," he added.
Keoghan's mother passed away from heroin addiction when he was 12, leading him and his siblings to live in various foster homes. He recalled being separated from his mother as she battled her addiction.
"I remember being kids here and hearing my mum scream through the letterbox, asking for us, while she’s battling addiction, while she’s looking for money to score. And we were just told to stay in bed. We weren’t to go down and hug her," he shared.
Other than his curiosity, the 32-year-old actor also attributed the addiction to the "enormous amount of pressure" of being in the Hollywood scene.
"There’s an enormous amount of pressure and a different lifestyle that is good and bad for you. You’re around the scene. You just happen to be the one that ends up doing it," The Batman star said.
"I’ve got scars here to literally prove it. They’re a result of using," he added.
Overcoming the struggles, he said that he's now "at peace."
"I’m at peace now, and responsible for everything that I do. I’m accepting. I’m present. I’m content. I’m a father. I’m getting to just see that haze that was once there – it’s just a bit sharper now, and colorful," he told the outlet.
"I apologize, too, mainly to myself more than anything else for all the pain I’ve put people and myself through," he added.
Back in January, Keoghan shared how becoming a father helped him to understand the challenges his mother faced.
“As I’ve got older and I’ve had my own son, I realized that it was such hard work for her and, you know, her and my father. And luckily, there was a good care system there, which is massively important," he said, speaking about children’s social care for the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
