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Theo James had certain fears about becoming a boy dad.
“Capitalism is the dominant force and if you are celebrated, no matter what you are, if you are stinking rich and driving around in flash cars [that] has been epitomized by Trumpism and everything that goes with that,” James, 41, said on the Wednesday, April 8, episode of Josh Smith’s Great Chat Show, referencing the cultural influence of President Donald Trump. “It’s terrifying having a son because people get lured into this idea very easily.”
He continued, “You don’t have to be ‘hyperwoke,’ but it’s about a base level of empathy and some semblance of morality. I think now that isn’t cool. It’s not cool to talk about those things. It’s cool to be like, ‘F*** you, I earn loads of cash.’ But, at the end of the day, there’s a deep emptinessiness within that as we all know and eventually all those people will find out.”
James and his wife, Ruth Kearney, welcomed their son in late 2023. (The couple also share a daughter, who was born in 2021.)
“We have a 4-month-old. We’re in the thick of it,” James said at the Emmy Awards in January 2024, confirming that Kearney, 41, gave birth months earlier. “We have a daughter and then a 4-month-old son.”
James and Kearney, who have been married since 2018, have not publicly revealed their children’s names and maintain a private family life. As they remain out of the public eye, James is hopeful to raise his son without the influence of toxic masculinity.
“I [also] try and have conversations with my friends and be open about mental health and if you’re struggling with things,” James said on Wednesday’s episode. “I think it’s super important because mental health affects a lot of men.”
The White Lotus alum further believes that toxic masculinity “comes down to a fact of an unclear identity.”
“They feel untethered, reduced. I think the misogyny comes from lots of successful, strong women around them. They don’t know how to deal with that,” he speculated. “They’re confused by who they are or who they should be, and the easiest thing to do is to latch on to something [whether it’s] money, going to the gym a lot of telling people to ‘go f*** themselves.’ That’s easy.”
A man’s identity can also affect body image, which James believed is “a problem.”
“It constantly evolves and changes when we talk about men, obviously, women have dealt with it for thousands of years and they continue to do so,” James acknowledged. “With men, I think the idea of, and again it goes into this kind of toxic masculinity thing about identity and forming identity through your body [where] you have to be bigger and more muscular, more swole.”
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