Penn Badgley's Son: Everything He's Said About Being a Father

Penn Badgley and wife Domino Kirke welcomed their son in 2020

Penn Badgley may play a cold-blooded killer in his hit Netflix show, You, but in his real life, he’s a devoted husband to his wife, Domino Kirke, and dad to their son.

After marrying his longtime love in 2017, the pair announced they were expecting their first child in February 2020. Their son was born on Aug. 11, 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's just been us, my wife and I, taking care of him,” Badgley told InStyle in October 2021 about raising his first child amid a global crisis. “In some ways, we're thrilled. There's a beautiful joy and lightness to our connection with him. He seems to reflect that. And at the same time, it's so hard."

Luckily, the parents have each other to lean on, and Kirke shared how supportive of a partner Badgley is in a sweet Instagram post celebrating Father’s Day 2023.

“To a real, patient, kind, devoted, sexy one,” she wrote alongside several photos of her husband with their son. “We’ve slept about 7 hrs total this week, but I can say without question there’s no one I’d rather be sleep deprived with. You’re so loved.”

Now Badgley is back to navigating life as a father of one and a famous actor working on the fifth and final season of his mega-hit show — a new challenge for him.

“I did most of that without any kids or spouse, you know?” he told Variety about building his career. “Or any real consideration for family — and now all that’s very different.”

Here’s everything to know about Penn Badgley's son.

Badgley and Kirke experienced miscarriages before having their son

In February 2020, Badgley and Kirke announced they were expecting their first baby together in a now-deleted Instagram post.

Kirke shared that she had experienced "two miscarriages in a row" and was "ready to call it."

"I stopped trusting my body and started to accept the fact that I was done," the doula and pregnancy educator captioned a photo of her bump. "As a birth attendant, I've seen and heard it all. It takes everything I've got to detach lovingly from the losses I've been present for and be in my own experience.”

The couple credited their unborn child with “teaching us how to stay in the day in a way we've never had to.”

Badgley's son was born in August 2020

Badgley and Kirke welcomed their son on Aug. 11, 2020. They shared the special news a month later in September 2020 in a now-deleted Instagram post showing a photo of her placenta.

"His heart shaped home ❣️ #40dayspostpartum," she wrote.

Kirke shared more details about the delivery after Mother’s Day 2023, alongside a photo of her eating a burger in her hospital bed. She revealed that she gave birth to their son vaginally after welcoming her first child — son Cassius with ex Morgan O'Kane — 11 years earlier by c-section.

“I love burgers and IV fluids. Especially after going from 3cm to fully dilated in 45 mins,” she wrote.

Kirke shared the first photo of her and Badgley’s son in October 2020

Fans caught a glimpse of Badgley and Kirke’s baby boy when she shared a photo of the little one and his dad on her Instagram two months after giving birth.

In the snap, the wide-eyed infant looked at his father with wonder while wearing a green and white striped onesie. Kirke captioned the image with a single heart emoji.

Badgley called his son's birth during the COVID-19 pandemic a “blessing”

Badgley's son was born at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant both parents could spend all of their time with him — something the actor has called a “blessing” while acknowledging the difficulties.

“The great bounty that I got out of it is that our baby ... has only been with us,” he said on The Jess Cagle Show in October 2021. “He loves it. He’s very happy, he’s very, very joyful, and we had the opportunity to be with him in a way that we wouldn’t have."

The Gossip Girl star continued, "So that is a strange blessing in it all. I am having such a joyful experience as a father ... Even being a father in a pandemic has still been a joy somehow.”

Badgley reveals how becoming a dad impacted his work on You

In season 3 of his hit Netflix show, Badgley’s character, Joe Goldberg, became a father for the first time. Still, having fatherhood in common was surprisingly unhelpful to the actor.

“I was curious ... how that would influence my experience with Joe and acting with him,” he told Access Hollywood in October 2021. “And sometimes it was almost not helpful because I was having such a light and joyful experience — still am — and Joe is so petrified.”

The Easy A actor added, “Of course I can identify with the fear but he's just so morbid in his obsessive, sort of like self-preservation, primal instinct that sometimes I almost found it harder as a result."

Badgley is also careful to keep his son from his scary on-screen role until he’s older — aside from one mishap in March 2023.

"There was recently a day when I was doing something really sweet with him, in my lap, and then I sat on the remote,” he said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “It just went right to Netflix on the TV, and my face was right on the TV.”

Adorably, the little one immediately recognized his father. “He was like, 'Daddy!' and I started to race around because the next thing he was going to see was something really crazy.”

Badgley bonded with other fathers in Hollywood

After becoming a dad, Badgley bonded with his You costars over fatherhood behind the scenes.

"I can't speak for Penn himself, but I absolutely loved working with him from start to finish," Downton Abbey alum Ed Speleers told PEOPLE. "I feel that we got on very well. We were a similar age. We're both dads. We connected a lot over that and music and football. And I feel that we pushed each other and we respected each other."

The Parts Per Billion actor also got some advice from Scott Speedman while filming season 3.

“It was so sweet. It was just like there's a world where it was just two men talking about the vulnerability of fatherhood,” Badgley told Elle about his chats with Speedman during downtime on set.

“It was one of my most memorable experiences of the season, and it was a very quiet, lovely day of work. We didn't get a lot of that,” he added. “I think it's not always so quiet and sensitive. ... There's a soft spot in my heart for him.”

Badgley learned about himself through becoming a dad

The actor himself was born two months prematurely with a condition that made his heart and lungs frequently stop working — something that required his mother to resuscitate him "multiple times a day" until he was 1 year old.

"I’ve learned a lot about prenatal, postpartum stuff and realized how much it did impact me,” he said on the HypochondriActor⁠ podcast.

Badgley reflected on how "constantly flatlining" might have affected his mom emotionally, and how the experience influenced his life. He shared that despite being an infant, he was still aware, like his own son is now.

"By the time you're a year old, knowing my son ... you have so much personality and consciousness going on even by the time you're a couple of months old, but especially a year old," he continued. "Thinking of my toddler now, I realize it actually did affect me. It affected my sense of what life is like, what life is not like."

Badgley shared a rare update about his son’s milestones

Badgley and Kirke are careful to keep their child’s life private, but the actor did share a little insight into his son’s life in a February 2023 interview with Access Hollywood.

“He’s talking a lot,” he said. “He says ‘you’ instead of ‘me.’ Like, instead of saying like, ‘I’m hungry’ or like ‘I’m finished,’ he’ll be like, ‘Are you all finished?’ ”

Badgley added, “And I’ll be like, ‘Are you all finished?’ And he’ll be like, ‘Yeah!’ It’s very funny.”

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