Armie Hammer Reflects On How 'Bizarre' Cannibalism Accusations Killed His Career
Armie Hammer is speaking out about the personal scandal that sent his life into a spiral three years ago.
“People called me a cannibal, and everyone believed them,” the actor said on an episode of the “Painful Lessons” podcast released Sunday. “They’re like, ‘Yup, that guy ate people.’”
“Like, what? What are you talking about? Do you know what you have to do to be a cannibal?” he added. “You have to eat people! How am I going to be a cannibal? It was bizarre.”
In 2021, the actor was embroiled in controversy after multiple women accused him of sexual abuse and coercion, and shared private messages where someone alleged to be Hammer expressed an interest in cannibalism and other sadistic fetishes.
Hammer denied the accusations of rape and physical abuse through his lawyers, calling the sexual encounters in question “completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory.”
The star was dropped by his talent agency, WME, and made a premature exit from projects like the Jennifer Lopez rom-com “Shotgun Wedding” and the “Godfather”-inspired Paramount+ series “The Offer.”
Amid the cannibalism scandal, the heir to the Hammer family oil fortune said he experienced both “an ego death” and “a career death.”
“It’s almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life,” he told “Painful Lessons” host Tyler Ramsey. “It killed me, it killed my ego, it killed all the people around me that I thought were my friends that weren’t — all of those people, in a flash, went away.”
In the wake of the allegations, Hammer would relocate to the Cayman Islands to regroup while staying near his and estranged wife Elizabeth Chambers’ children.
He subsequently checked into a Florida rehab facility for “drug, alcohol, and sex issues,” according to reports from Vanity Fair at the time.
Though Hammer feels like his life was upended by the accusations, he said he was “grateful” that the situation forced him to confront a pattern of unhealthy behavior.
“Even in the indiscrepancies, even in the ― whatever it was that people said, whatever it was that happened, I’m now at a place in my life where I’m grateful for every single bit of it,” the “Call Me by Your Name” actor explained.
In fall 2022, several of Hammer’s accusers came forward in the three-part Discovery+ docuseries “House of Hammer,” where they detailed their alleged experiences with the actor.
One of Hammer’s initial accusers, a woman going by the name of Effie who accused the actor of rape, denounced the series in a statement, calling it “extremely inappropriate” to “exploit such a tragic, vulnerable time in many people’s lives with no regard whatsoever for our healing process and privacy.”
Check out Hammer’s full conversation on the “Painful Lessons” podcast.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
