Armie Hammer is speaking out about being called a “cannibal.”
The actor, 37, called the cannibal allegations “bizarre” as he opened up about dealing with “career death” following accusations of sexual and physical abuse on the June 16 episode of the Painful Lessons podcast.
“There were things that people were saying about me that just felt so outlandish … that I was a cannibal. Now I’m able to sort of look at it with a sense of distance and perspective and be like, ‘that’s hilarious.’ Like, people called me a cannibal and everyone believed them.”
“How am I going to be a cannibal? It was bizarre, right?” He added.
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Hammer’s response comes after two of his exes, Courtney Vucekovich and Julia Morrison, alleged in the 2022 documentary House of Hammer that the Call Me by Your Name actor sent them text messages and voice notes detailing cannibalistic fantasies they claim he had about them.
On the podcast, Hammer claimed the scandal surrounding him led to the breakdown of his career, which he initially felt “resentment” over. However, now he is “grateful for every single bit of it.”
“Even in the indiscrepancies [sic], even in the… whatever it was that people said … I’m now at a place in my life where I’m really grateful for every single bit of it, because where I was in my life before all of that stuff happened to me I didn’t feel good … 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,” he said.
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The actor also revealed on the podcast that he entered a program after he “hit rock bottom” following his “career death,” likening the allegations to a “neutron bomb that went off in my life.”
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“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, but the buildings were still standing. I’m still here. I still have my health, and I’m really grateful for that,” Hammer continued.
In 2021, Hammer was accused of sexual assault, physical abuse and violent sexual fantasies by multiple women amid his divorce from his ex-wife, Elizabeth Chambers. In 2023, he denied all allegations of physical abuse.
That same year, the LAPD issued a statement that read in part, “Sexual assault cases are often difficult to prove, which is why we assign our most experienced prosecutors to review them. In this case, those prosecutors conducted an extremely thorough review, but determined that at this time, there is insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Hammer with a crime.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
