Barry Keoghan reveals he's still 'haunted' by memories of his mother Debbie's heroin addiction

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Barry Keoghan has always been open about his turbulent past. The Irish actor's life story is both inspiring and heart-wrenching, marked by childhood trauma, loss, and resilience.

In an emotional interview on 'The Louis Theroux Podcast', the 32-year-old shared deeply personal memories, shedding light on his mother Debbie's struggle with addiction and the haunting memories that continue to impact him, as per BuzzFeed.

Barry Keoghan's childhood was filled with upheaval due to his mother's heroin addiction

Barry Keoghan's childhood was filled with upheaval. His mother, Debbie, battled heroin addiction—a destructive force that tore through many families in Dublin's Summerhill neighborhood in the 1990s.

When he was just five, his life took a significant turn: he and his younger brother, Eric, were taken into foster care due to their mother's inability to care for them. Little is known about Barry's father. 

The 'Saltburn' actor recalled moving through 13 different foster homes in the four years that followed. Each new placement was a world of uncertainty, leaving young Barry and his brother to adapt repeatedly to unfamiliar environments.

He told Louis Theroux, "You don't forget waiting on the social worker steps and waiting for the new family to come and play with you in the playground they have in the office and see if it's going to work and then go with them to a whole new area and a whole new home."

Their only contact with their mother during this time was limited to supervised visits, an arrangement that added to the distance in their relationship. 

Despite the turmoil, Barry's grandmother and aunt eventually managed to bring him and his brother out of foster care, providing them with a sense of stability that had been absent for years.

The two boys joined their older sister, Gemma, who gave up her job to help raise them, creating a close-knit family unit in their two-bedroom home in Summerhill—a place with economic hardships that still offered the comfort of family.

This newfound security, however, was short-lived. Just three years later, Barry's mother succumbed to her addiction. She died from a heroin overdose when he was 12.

Recalling that painful day, Keoghan told JOE in 2018, "My nanny and my auntie told us. It wasn’t a nice day; it was the worst day of my life. I was about 12, but there was something in me that I just took it, and it made me stronger."

Barry Keoghan carries no anger towards his mother despite painful memories

Barry Keoghan remembered his "lovely" and "gorgeous" mother who was adored by many, as he recalled how her heroin addiction "caught her."

He spoke about a harrowing scene from 'The Basketball Diaries', a 1995 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jim Carroll, a high school student struggling with heroin addiction.

He found the film profoundly relatable, particularly a scene where Jim begs his mother for money at her front door while she, devastated, refuses to let him in.

"There was a scene in that movie where he comes to the front door, and that actual scene happened at my granny's house," explained Barry to Theroux. 

He described lying in bed as a young boy, hearing his mother’s desperate pleas from the other side of the door.

"I remember laying in bed and [my mom] screaming through the letterbox, just wanting money, and we had to lay in bed and my aunt and granny was like: 'Just don't go down,'" recalled the actor. He added, "That haunts me. That was one of the last times I heard her, like, her voice, and that stuff haunts me."

Although these memories are painful, Barry carries no anger toward his mother.

He understands addiction as an illness, explaining, "I don't blame her. It's a sickness." 

"It's sad to see the deterioration of people around the area and see people kind of struggle with it and the recovery they're in now. It caught my mum, it caught my uncle who died of it, and caught my father as well," lamented Barry.