Armie Hammer ‘grateful’ for cannibal rumours

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Armie Hammer is opening up for the first time following the shocking cannibalism claims that ended his Hollywood career three years ago.

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Hammer — who is best known for starring in films like The Social Network, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, Call Me By Your Name and Death on the Nile — was accused of rape in 2021 by a woman, known only as Effie, who claimed she was subjected to a four-hour ordeal in 2017.

Hammer was also accused of sending leaked cannibalism and rape messages to a series of other women and allegedly talking to them about his odd sex fetishes. The actor denied the “bulls— claims” but the controversy cost him a slew of roles, including Jennifer Lopez’s Shotgun Wedding and The Offer, a series about the making of The Godfather.

Hammer’s former girlfriend Paige Lorenze spoke out about their relationship, telling Vanity Fair that she felt “unsafe” during her short-lived romance with the actor.

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“He started making rules for me of things I could and couldn’t do, who I could have over, who I couldn’t. He told me that I couldn’t have anyone else in my bed.”

In a discovery+ documentary, House of Hammer, two of Hammer’s exes who have alleged abuse at the hands of the actor, Courtney Vucekovich and Julia Morrison, recounted their past experiences with the actor.

“In the beginning, I felt like this was all perfect; this was amazing,” said Vucekovich. “But then things changed. He pushes your boundaries a little bit at a time. You’re his, completely. … I mean, he said, ‘I’m 100% a cannibal.’ I’m freaking out.”

Morrison claimed his alleged fantasy, “was all he wanted to ever talk about.”

During an appearance on his pal Tyler Ramsey’s Painful Lessons podcast, Hammer, 37, spoke about the claims and said he was “grateful” for the scandal that ruined his career.

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“There’s been three-and-a-half years of painful lessons … There were things that people were saying about me that just felt so outlandish … that’s hilarious. People called me a cannibal and everyone believed them. 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.” 

But Hammer said the rumours were actually useful for helping him hit the reset button on his life.

“Everything in my life falls apart. I lose all my representation. I lose all of my work. I lose everything (and) think this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me … 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 Golden Globe nominee said.

“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,” the father of two continued. “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 self-validation but I had this job where I was able to get it from so many people that I never had to learn how to give it to myself.”

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Hammer said the accusations caused “an ego death” and “a career death.”

“It’s almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life,” he said. “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.”

But Hammer, who at one point was selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands following the drama, admitted that his life as an actor is “nowhere” and said that he has set his sights on writing a screenplay with a friend.

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