Rebuilding his career from a “tiny-ass apartment” after shocking sexual assault allegations, including BDSM and cannibalism, derailed it four years ago, Hammer is now able to unpack how he was using women to feed his ego, and why he felt “like a f–king alien” in his own life.
After a shocking series of allegations including sexual assault and cannibalistic fantasies in 2021, Armie Hammer effectively found himself removed from the Hollywood conversation, ostracized from his career.
At the time, he only admitted to cheating on then-wife Elizabeth Chambers, and while the LAPD launched an investigation into an accusation of rape, he was ultimately not charged. Nevertheless, his career was in shambles.
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Now, four years later, Hammer is living in what he describes as a “tiny-ass apartment,” shaking off the tumult and making his way back into the spotlight with new projects on the horizon, and the launch of his own podcast.
While chatting with comedians Christina Pazsitzy and Tom Segura on the latest episode of their Your Mom’s House, the Call Me By Your Name star credited in part the COVID-19 pandemic for how big his story got.
Wanting to Get Caught
“The world seemed like it was falling apart, and people were just deeply unhappy with their own lives. And then this salacious story comes around where this actor wants to murder and eat people,” he said. “And all of a sudden, everyone’s like, ‘Oh, this is so much more fun to focus on than the fact that I can’t leave my living room.'”
On his side of the explosive stories, Hammer admitted he was “in full panic mode.”
“There would be articles in, like, The Punjabi Times about how I was a cannibal and all that stuff,” he added. “And I think in March of 2021, like, I was the, like, fifth most-searched person on Google in the world. And all of it was negative.”
“You’re just left standing there naked in front of the world with all of your proclivities or kinks being judged by the world,” he said. “That s–t is tough.”
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He talked about “this mask that I didn’t really identify with, but everyone thought was me, that that became sort of like my safety net and identity.” So even though he didn’t necessarily feel authentic in that skin, it was still a huge shock to lose that perception.
At the same time, Hammer admitted, “I think somewhere deep down, subconsciously, I wanted to get caught.”
“I so did not relate to the image of me that was out there in the public,” he continued. “Like, ‘Look at them, they’re like the Ralph Lauren family. They’ve got the perfect life, and the perfect house, and the perfect kid.'”
He said he felt “like a f–king alien walking around most of the time. I don’t feel like a human, I feel like a creature.”
That’s why he thinks he was “liking” rope bondage pictures with his personal Twitter account, fully knowing what that was opening him up to happen.
“It was like I was dog-whistling to it, if you will, and wanting to get caught,” he explained. “People would be like, ‘I don’t think he knows his Twitter likes are public.’ I saw that and I was like, ‘I know.'”
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Using People for Validation
As for those proclivities, Hammer did admit to some more extreme sexual interests, including bondage fantasies. “I like the idea that you are so completely mine. Yeah. I can do whatever I want, and you love it because you know you’re mine,” the actor shared, revealing that he’d practiced tying a partner on a mannequin.
He also admitted that he was using women to feed his own ego like an addition, saying “people were my bags of dope with skin on it.” He explained that “having people want to have sex with me, having sex with people, doing all that stuff, like, it gave me a sense of power. It gave me a sense of validation.”
He also admitted to being somewhat callous in how he interacted with these women, while opening up about his time recently in therapy and reflecting on his behavior and how he treated people.
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“What I would do is I would scoop these girls up, take them on a whirlwind month and a half, road trips, trips, whatever. Like, we’re gonna do all these things. We’re gonna have great sex. Everything’s gonna be awesome,” he shared, adding that he would then “bounce and go do it with someone else.”
“There are aspects of my behavior that I think were coming from maybe not the healthiest place. Then there were aspects of my behavior that were just expressions of my own sexuality,” he said on the podcast. “So I had to sort of, like, comb through all of that and figure out what’s coming from the right place, what’s coming from a trauma place.”
Hammer has previously opened up about being allegedly sexually assaulted by a pastor when he was 13 years old.
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Reclaiming His Career
After a few years out of the spotlight, Hammer is happy to say, “The worm is turning; it takes time.” But he says he’s noticing a much different narrative when his name comes up now.
“It’s slow, but generally now the conversation when my name comes up with people in the industry is, ‘Man, that guy got f–ked,'” he shared. “And that feels really good. It’s really encouraging.”
The busy actor just wrapped the upcoming Western film Frontier Crucible, in which he stars alongside William H. Macy and Thomas Jane, and said he has two more feature films in the pipeline, as well as a possible TV show.
Hammer said things have shifted so much that for the first time in years, he’s found himself “turning jobs down.”
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“My dance card’s getting pretty full,” he shared. “That first job that I turned down after four years of this s–t? I mean, it was the best feeling I’ve ever had.”
He also launched his own podcast last year, where he feels ready to keep it real and have “uncomfortable conversations,” including sexual kinks and the traumas of his childhood.
“I’m doing it on my terms, and I’m doing it authentically as myself,” he said of the podcast. “One of the scary things about having the podcast is being vulnerable in a public way, especially having gone through what I went through where all this s–t was weaponized against me, is really f–king scary.”
“But I’m leaning into it,” he continued, “because I know that the things generally that make me feel afraid are the things that I gotta go towards in order to grow.”
In the past two months, Hammer has released 10 episodes of his Armie HammerTime Podcast, featuring guests ranging from his mom to his best friend, to a criminal defense attorney, intersex advocate, and even some celebrity guests.
