Armie Hammer Details ‘Spiritual’ and ‘Emotional Crisis’ Following Cannibalism Accusations
Armie Hammer found an unlikely silver lining in the world believing that he was an alleged cannibal. In 2021, accusations of cannibalism emerged against the actor around the same time that he was also facing accusations of sexual abuse and rape from multiple women. He was subsequently dropped from a number of productions and chose to exit others on his own. In 2023, the Los Angeles County District Attorney decided not to file sexual assault charges. His career has not yet reached any meaningful state of recovery, but during a recent podcast appearance, Hammer expressed gratitude for the spiritual and emotional crisis that he experienced following the scandal.
“There were things that people were saying about me that just felt so outlandish. Now, I’m able to sort of look at it with a sense of distance and perspective and be like. ‘That’s hilarious.’ People called me a cannibal and everyone believed them,” Hammer said on the Painful Lessons podcast, hosted by his “close friend” Tyler Ramsey. “They’re like, ‘Yep, that guy ate people.’ You’re just like, ‘What? What are you talking about? Do you know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to eat people. How am I going to be a cannibal?’ It was bizarre.”
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A docuseries about the allegations against Hammer, House of Hammer, was released in 2022. It stemmed from the release of multiple unverified screenshots of text messages that the actor purportedly sent to one of his accusers, a woman who called herself “Effie.” The messages included depictions of extreme cannibalism and bondage fetish scenarios. In the wake of Effie’s statements, other women subsequently came forward with similar allegations. One claimed Hammer was interested in “eating her ribs” and had carved an “A” into her flesh, while another alleged he “manipulated” her into BDSM acts that “frankly scared” her.
During the podcast, he added: “What I will say about it, even in the indiscrepancies, even in 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. I’m actually now at a place where I’m really grateful for it because where I was in my life before all of that stuff happened to me, I didn’t feel good. I never felt satisfied. I never had enough, I never was in a place where I was happy with myself, where I had self-esteem. I never knew how to give myself love. I never knew how to give myself validation.”
The actor explained that when he struggled to find support within himself, he would look outwardly to his audience for validation and approval. He detailed scrolling through the comments beneath his Instagram posts and attempting to internalize the positive remarks he found there. He didn’t find this to be sustainable, however.
“As soon as it went past the event horizon and into me, it was a black hole where it just disappeared,” Hammer said. “I didn’t feel good about myself but I had this tap that I could turn and get all of that. And when that tap ran dry and I mean it didn’t just run dry — instead of adoration or whatever, it started running with just hate on a global scale. It was a crisis, a spiritual crisis, an emotional crisis.”
Hammer first broke his silence early last year when he spoke with the digital newsletter Air Mail. In the interview, the actor revealed that he was molested at the age of 13 by a youth pastor at his church and admitted that he was emotionally abusive towards some of his accusers, and that “the power dynamics were off,” but denied ever sexually assaulting them. He said at the time that he felt grateful for his life and recovery, which included a stint in rehab, and claimed he would “not go back and undo everything that’s happened to me.”
On the Painful Lessons podcast, Hammer echoed this sentiment, going so far as to wish that his loved ones could experience something similar.
“The way I saw it was, I have two options here: I can either let this destroy me or, to the point of your podcast, I can use this as a lesson. At the time, I didn’t have the wherewithal or frame of mind to understand that this was a lesson,” Hammer added. “But now being not only removed from the initial chaos of it — but also having learned everything that I’ve learned as a result from it — I look at it now and I go, you know what? It was awful and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. But for the people in my life that I truly love, I hope some version — preferably smaller than what I went through — would happen to them as well so they could learn everything that I’ve learned.”
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