An introspective Armie Hammer has laughed off accusations of cannibalism leveled at him during his precipitous fall from grace after facing a brutal series of sexual misconduct allegations.
The “Call Me By Your Name” star spoke Sunday about his downfall, some of the “outlandish” accusations he faced and how the latest “happy, balanced” version of himself is “grateful” for everything that happened to him. passed. Citing three and a half years of painful lessons about acceptance and having to deal with his problems without causing more “destruction,” Hammer explained that his exile from Hollywood has allowed him to get sober, work on himself, repair his relationship. with his sick father and get closer. to his children, of whom he lost partial custody during the sex scandal and his divorce from Elizabeth Chambers in 2020.
“There were things that people said about me that seemed so outlandish to me, that I was a cannibal, and now I can look at them with a sense of distance and perspective and say, that's hilarious,” Hammer, 37, said. Sunday on his friend Tyler Ramsey's “Painful Lessons” podcast. “People called me a cannibal and everyone believed them. They say, yeah, that guy ate people. 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 can I be a cannibal?! It was weird”.
But the star of “The Social Network” and “The Man From UNCLE” said he is now “grateful for every detail.”
“I'm actually in a place now where I'm very grateful for it because the place I was in before all those things happened to me, I didn't feel good. I never felt satisfied. I never had enough. I was never 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 validate myself, 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.”
If he ever felt bad about himself, Hammer said he would go to Instagram and look at the comments on a selfie he posted and it would make him feel good. Some of the allegations, including alleged text messages or voice notes describing fantasies about him drinking blood, sexual domination and cannibalism, surfaced on the social media platform, with the stories eventually turning into accusations of rape and accusations that he forced others to engage in aggressive acts. sexual activities. (Hammer has denied any nonconsensual sexual activity, and the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said last year that it would not file charges against him.)
“No matter how much praise, no matter how much adoration, whatever people threw at me, as soon as it passed the event horizon and entered me, it was a black hole where it just disappeared. Nothing stagnated and I didn't feel good about myself,” Hammer said on the podcast. “But I had a faucet that I could turn on and take all of that out and when that faucet ran dry (not only did it run dry, but it started running with hatred on a global scale) it was a crisis, a spiritual crisis, a crisis. emotional crisis”.
The actor said he finally realized he had two options: he could let hate destroy him or he could use it as a lesson. He said he hit rock bottom and sought treatment for his addictions.
“In my case, it was an ego death, a career death. I experienced all these deaths. That becomes part of what [writer] Joseph Campbell called it the hero's journey. “I’m not saying he’s a hero, I’m using the words of Joseph Campbell: the hero must die in order to be born again,” Hammer said.
“On the path I was on before, I was burning the candle pretty hard at both ends and there are only a couple of different ways that story ends. And I'm really grateful, it's almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life. He killed all the people. I kill myself. It killed my ego. He killed all the people around me who I thought were my friends and who weren't. all those people [gone] in an instant. She disappeared, but the buildings still stand. I'm still here. I still have my health and I am very grateful for that,” he explained.
Hammer said he felt resentment and anger throughout that time, but realized, through the work he did on himself, that “those aren't going to do me any good anyway.”
“Whatever was said, whatever happened, whoever was involved, they were all, in a broad cosmic sense, elements of me learning the lessons I had to learn anyway. Instead of being resentful of these people, maybe there is a way to be grateful for it,” he said.
The actor, who said he was suicidal during the ordeal, went to rehab in 2021 amid the sex scandal.
“There were many times when I thought: I can't take this anymore. This is too much, this is more stress than a human being has ever been able to deal with. …she was getting hate. I was getting hate before I knew how to give myself love… So it just came in… there was a time when I was standing on the shore and I swam too far away and just lay there… half suicide. I tried… and it seemed like it was the only option for me. …But I thought I couldn't do that to my kids, so I swam back. This was just when I was sober,” he added. “I had to accept the fact that sometimes you will feel like shit. “
He said he looked for a dual diagnosis treatment center that would address the addiction issues he had faced his entire life. The center, whose name he did not mention, also helped him unravel the emotional and psychological aspects of his “multiple addictive behaviors,” specifically what he cited as his “maladaptive coping mechanisms,” why he has them, and the “core wound” that took it to them.
The “root root” of his addictive behaviors, he said, was the sexual abuse he experienced as a child and certain ways he was raised.
“You can only connect the dots by looking backwards. Then everything in my life falls apart. I lose all my representation. I lose all my work. I lose everything, right? At that moment I think this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” she said.
In retrospect, and from “a much healthier perspective,” Hammer said he was able to use his time away from the film and television industry to spend quality time with his children and care for his father, businessman Michael Armand Hammer, who He died in November 2022 from brain cancer.
“I was able, during the last year of his life, to take care of him. I changed his diapers. I cooked food for him. I took him to doctor appointments. “I presented myself as a son, as I should have presented myself to my father,” said the actor. “If I had been working for those three and a half years like I did before, I would have been gone for 10 months of the year. He would have lost me everything. Instead, I sat there with my dad until the point where he cognitively declined and we couldn't do this anymore.
“I would never have done that if I was still working. He was too invested in myself,” he said. “That year he did a lot to repair our relationship in many different ways. When he passed away, there was obviously sadness about his passing, but I had no regrets about how I spent that time.”
Hammer acknowledged that his once-thriving acting career is “nowhere now,” but said he hopes to return to the industry by creating his “own sandbox” and writing a script.
