I mentioned, briefly, a few weeks before the holidays last year that the way some of you feel about Paul Mescal is how I feel about Barry Keoghan.

He is currently my biggest western celebrity crush. In team meetings at work, whenever he comes out, I can’t speak. I lose focus. Which is why I barely cover him… because it was on the verge of getting out of control. And I knew that that would happen anyway once I was able to watch Saltburn. So the plan was to watch Saltburn over the holiday break, at which point I’d have a few days to get it through my system by the new year.

Saltburn director reveals alternative ending for Barry Keoghan's character - PopBuzz

As IF.

My Barry problem is even worse now, to the point where I’m looking for any excuse to write about him – and that’s what this post is now. But first, let me be clear, this has been building for a few years now. Ever since that scene in Eternals. It was November 2021, and the evidence is right here. The tablet. “My beautiful, beautiful Makkari…did you miss me?” It was over for me in that moment. Ten seconds is all Barry needed to make me a believer.

And now it’s 2024, I’ve seen Saltburn full film four times over the last 12 days, have watched the ending probably a hundred times, and of course THAT scene at least 40 times…

If you know Saltburn, I don’t need to tell you which one. It is delicious, pun intended. The refreshing depravity of it! And how necessary it was for Barry’s character, Oliver, and what he had been repressing: months and months of restraint, years of it ahead of him. The release of that bathwater was a release for him too.

Right, was Barry Keoghan wearing a prosthetic in THAT Saltburn final scene?

And now that bathwater is… a candle.

Did you hear about this? “Jacob Elordi’s Bathwater” is being sold as a candle on Etsy,  LOLOLOLOL.

For me, though, it’s not about Jacob, obviously. It’s about Barry. Barry could have been sucking up anyone’s, um, bathwater, it wouldn’t matter to me. The water is not my kink. My kink is the person consuming it, inhaling it like a vampire and his prey…

I will never be able to thank Emerald Fennell enough for giving us that moment.

And Sophie Ellis-Bextor is thanking Emerald for giving another life to her 2001 song “Murder on the Dancefloor”. This is the track that plays during the final scene and it’s back on the charts now thanks to Saltburn and Barry’s performance.

Hundreds of those streams belong to me. “Murder on the Dancefloor” is now on almost all my playlists. And yours too right? Are you buying the candle?