Armie Hammer has given a candid interview since multiple sexual misconduct and abuse allegations were made against him three years ago, saying he is now “grateful” it all happened – including the “bizarre” cannibalism rumours.
“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,” Hammer said on the Painful Lessons podcast.
The Call Me By Your Name actor denied accusations of rape and physically abusive behaviour in 2021 by a woman, known as Effie, who he had been in an on-and-off relationship with for four years. She reported Hammer to the police and claimed he raped her in 2017, and shared screenshots of graphic texts allegedly sent by Hammer on an anonymous Instagram account, which included one where the actor appeared to declare himself a cannibal.
Soon after, at least two other women came forward with similar accusations of sexual coercion and emotional abuse from Hammer between 2017 and 2020. Ex-girlfriend Paige Lorenze spoke to Vanity Fair alleging the pair shared an extreme relationship, saying: “You never know what you’re going to get with him – he’s kind of a scary person. He would say things to me … weird stuff … like, ‘I want to eat your ribs.’”
Hammer later admitted that the “power dynamics were off” in the relationships he had with the women but has consistently denied any criminal wrongdoing and maintained his encounters with all of the women were consensual. He was dropped by his acting agency and lost multiple high-profile roles.
Last year, the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office announced it would not pursue any case against Hammer in regards to Effie’s allegations, saying that “due to the complexity of the relationship” between Effie and Hammer, they were “unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt”.
In an episode of Painful Lessons released on Sunday, Hammer rubbished the cannibalism remarks to podcast host Tyler Ramsey.
“People called me a cannibal and everyone believed them,” Hammer said. “Now I’m able to sort of look at it with a sense of distance and perspective and be like, ‘That’s hilarious’. They were like, ‘Yep, that guy ate people’ Like, what? What are you talking about? You know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to eat people! … It was bizarre.”
When the allegations first emerged, Hammer said: “It was an ego death, a career death … A neutron bomb went off in my life. It killed off [everything].”
“Before all of that stuff happened to me”, he said, he “didn’t feel good” and was “never satisfied”. It was his job as an actor, he said, that gave him the most validation.
Of his Hollywood career, the actor said it is now “nowhere”, but shared he is planning to write a screenplay.
In the hour-long chat, Hammer spoke about his time in the Cayman Islands where he retreated after the public backlash, and revealed more about how he had felt suicidal, which he has spoken about previously.
“There were a lot of times when I thought, ‘I can’t take this any more.’ And I hit really low, dark points,” he said. “I was standing on the shore and I just looked out at the ocean and thought, ‘Yep, this is it,’ and I just swam out really fucking far … and was just laying there … [in] a half-assed suicide attempt … [But I thought] I can’t do that to my kids.”
Hammer and his ex-wife, Elizabeth Chambers, divorced in July 2020. The pair share two young children.
In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html