Penn Badgley‘s wife, Domino Kirke, poked fun at the reality of marriage with a divorce joke in her Father’s Day tribute.
“When you grow up with a childlike father, you learn not to expect much. You brace yourself for disappointment over and over,” Kirke, 42, captioned an Instagram post on Sunday, June 21. “You make excuses for their behavior and convince yourself you don’t deserve much more.”
Kirke, who welcomed son Cassius, 16, in a previous relationship, recalled finding it “easier” to “parent alone” before she met Badgley, 39.
“Truth is, I felt like I had more ‘control’ as a single mum,” she wrote. “That’s all that was. I needed to run the show and keep everything where I could see it. I know now that control is an illusion. Even on the days I think I can do this better alone, even with all that muscle memory to back it up, I know now in my bones that I can’t.”
While reflecting on their lives as a family of six, Kirke publicly praised Badgley as a dad. “Sure, twins. Sure, we’re finally outnumbered,” she added. “But it’s more than that. Time takes time, and 13 yrs later, I realize we’ve always had a child in tow. Always a child in our bed, even one that wasn’t your own.”
She continued: “‘Four kids! You wanna know what it’s like to have a fourth? Just imagine you’re drowning, and someone hands you a baby.’ ~ Jim Gaffigan. Thank you for riding every wave with me and for not agreeing to a divorce every time I ask for one. Happy Father’s Day, @pennbadgley; we’re the lucky ones.”
The couple, who got married in 2017, are also parents to son James, 4, and 9-month-old twin boys. Before expanding their family, Kirke gushed about how Badgley took over the role of stepdad to her eldest son.
“He’s a really good stepdad,” Kirke exclusively told Us Weekly in 2019 of Badgley. “He doesn’t have to be ‘dad,’ so he can have more fun with him. It’s really nice. The stepparent thing is definitely uncharted territory for me ’cause I didn’t grow up with one, but … he takes care of him really well.”
Kirke spoke to Us about watching Cassius grow into his own, saying, “Boys at 10 have the same amount of testosterone as they will have when they’re 18, so there’s a sass, but when I speak to him on the phone, he’ll be like, ‘Hey mom, you sound tired. You should go to bed.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK, thanks.’ Like, ‘Whoa, who am I talking to?’”
Badgley has also discussed adjusting to being a stepfather.
“I was curious [how] my new fatherhood would influence my experience with Joe and acting with him,” he told Access Hollywood in 2021, referring to his role on the Netflix series You. “But sometimes, it was almost not helpful because I was having such a light and joyful experience [and] still am, and Joe was, like, so petrified and so scared. Of course, I can identify with the fear, but he’s just so morbid in his obsessive self-preservation and primal instinct that sometimes I almost found it harder.”
At the time, Badgley reflected on becoming a first-time “biological father” amid the COVID pandemic, telling InStyle, “It’s just been us, my wife and I, taking care of [our son]. And as a result, 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.”
Badgley further explained how he found himself connecting to his character on You, who welcomed a son during season 3.
“I certainly had the great bounty of drawing on my own experience, becoming a new biological parent, and that was quite natural,” he told Elle in October 2021. “There are some definitely sweet moments where I was able to do that, but I think by and large, [Joe’s] paternal instinct is at best primal. I think to be a good father or a parent, you need to really rise several orders above primal, but he’s at least primal, I guess.”
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