Armie Hammer Says He’s Now “Grateful” for Career-Upending Cannibalism, Sexual Misconduct Scandal

Armie Hammer in 2020 at E! People’s Choice Awards.

Todd Williamson/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

Armie Hammer is speaking out about the allegations of cannibalism, sexual misconduct and an accusation of rape that upended his career three years ago, saying this weekend that he is “grateful” for the experience. 

Hammer, 37, was experiencing a career resurgence after he received high praise for roles in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name and Sorry to Bother You the next year, after nearly a decade of struggling to break through following his standout turn as the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network. Then in January 2021, an anonymous Instagram account published what claimed to be text messages Hammer had sent to various women that included dark sexual fantasies and a reference to cannibalism. 

That same month, his ex Courtney Vucekovich detailed to Page Six the emotional abuse she said she experienced in the relationship; Vucekovich said this led her to enter the hospital with PTSD. The cannibal chatter around Hammer was amplified when she claimed he’d expressed a desire to break one of her ribs and eat it. A third woman later claimed the actor had “branded her, purposefully left her covered in bruises, and also talked about ‘consuming her.’” His anonymous Instagram accuser then came forward to claim Hammer raped her in April 2017, and the Los Angeles Police Department opened up an investigation into the actor.

Following the Discovery+ docuseries House of Hammer on the allegations, Hammer denied any criminal wrongdoing while accepting responsibility for being a selfish “asshole,” saying he was in recovery.

Appearing now, more than a year later, on the Painful Lessons podcast on Sunday, Hammer told host Tyler Ramsey — a personal friend, as is stated at the top of the episode — that he now has gratitude for these and all events in his life because it has gotten him where he is in his life and with himself today.

“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. “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.”

Hammer described his lack of self-worth at the time of the accusations as a “black hole” where any praise for him or his work would quickly evaporate. Now, he said, the lessons he learned and new perspective gained from the scandal are invaluable, and something he hopes those he loves can experience, albeit on a much “smaller scale.”

Hammer also said he now laughs at the rumors that he had eaten human flesh. 

“I’m able to 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. They’re like, ‘Yep, that guy ate people.’ They’re just like — what? Like, what are you talking about?”

Hammer has consistently denied all accusations of rape and physical abuse. An investigation by police in Los Angeles of the rape accusation that concluded in 2023 did not produce evidence that could bring any charges; powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred eventually dropped Hammer’s accusor as a client, which US Weekly reported came when the woman refused to sign a declaration under penalty of perjury of her accusations. Hammer later said there were “power imbalances” in the relationships in question and admitted that he’d been emotionally abusive to the accusers. 

But the fallout from the scandalous accusations, Hammer told Ramsey, “was an ego death, a career death … A neutron bomb went off in my life. It killed off [everything].” He also discussed his life in the Cayman Islands, where he retreated as his career imploded, and spoke further after some initial statements last year on the suicidal ideation that followed.

“There were a lot of times when I thought, ‘I can’t take this anymore.’ And I hit really low, dark points. 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,” he revealed, adding that he was unable to end his life because he could not abandon his children. Hammer has two kids with his ex-wife, Elizabeth Chambers.

Hammer said on the podcast that no one from Hollywood has come knocking and as far as acting, his once-promising career is “nowhere.” He did, however, reveal that he has co-written a screenplay that he plans to see through to the next stage of making it into a film. Ramsey said the script “mirrors [Hammer’s] life.”

“We’re in the middle of trying to put that project together,” Hammer said of the script, which he said was co-written with a friend, but declined to provide further details on its subject. “We have a script and it’s something that we’re passionate about and it’s something that I’m going to go do. I don’t know what the future of that is going to look like. I don’t know what the response of that is going to be, but those are things out of my control. I’m powerless over what peoples’ response to it is going to be, essentially. But I can go do something that I’m passionate about. Just because they tell me I can’t do it doesn’t mean that I have to listen.”