Armie Hammer Finally Speaks Out About Harrowing Sexual Violence Allegations
In an interview, Armie Hammer blamed his sexual proclivities on childhood sexual abuse.
Armie Hammer is the kind of Hollywood actor whose career derailed in the most unexpected way and at the worst possible time. Heading into 2021, it looked like he might finally enjoy his big moment after winning major kudos for his role in the 2017 movie Call Me By Your Name (this after multiple attempts to be a leading man action hero in films like The Lone Ranger and The Man from U.N.C.L.E). However, a number of women came forward and accused Hammer of having depraved fantasies of sexual violence, cannibalism, and rape, and after two years of silence other than denying the allegations, the star gave an interview with Airmail, denying them again by saying “I have never thrust this on someone unexpectedly” and blaming his troubling sexual proclivities on getting sexually abused by a pastor when he was younger.
Armie Hammer’s description of being sexually abused as a child is frankly heartbreaking. According to him, the abuse made the future star feel “powerless in the situation” and that he “had no agency in the situation,” and this led to a singular desire: “I want to have control in the situation, sexually.” This all led to his sexual lifestyle as an adult which Hammer maintains was only mistaken for a desire to sexually abuse women.
According to Armie Hammer, he was emotionally abusive to women, but this abuse never became physical. The actor maintains that the primary thing he did wrong was abuse his wealth and influence to pick up and drop different women in a very disposable way. Making matters worse is the fact that he allegedly had a consensual/non-consensual (also known as CNC) relationship with a woman, and the very nature of CNC sexual roleplay (in which one partner says “no” but has previously given their consent for sex) led to a single incident that she called rape and he called roleplay.
While Armie Hammer clearly hopes this interview will help to clear up his tarnished name, this may be a genuine case where it’s too little, too late. In a post-#MeToo world, his nonconsensual fantasies were always going to raise more than a few eyebrows, and the explosive allegations against Hammer (complete with some fairly damning screenshots of text exchanges) were enough to make him drop out of the film Shotgun Wedding and drop other roles he was offered. Now, he feels like his career is permanently ruined, admitting during the interview that “no one will hire me” and “no one will insure me,” and that even if someone would do so, “no one will touch me because if they hire me, then they are the people who support abusers.”
Wrestling with the ongoing effects on his career ended up taking Armie Hammer to some dark places, and he said during the interview that he once swam out to sea and pondered taking his own life, and it was only thinking about his children that caused him to swim back to his own before he did anything drastic. However, a very philosophical Hammer admitted that he wouldn’t undo the past two years if he could, saying that he is “now a healthier, happier, more balanced person” after completing much-needed rehab for alcohol and drug abuse. And now that he has spent so much time working on himself, only time will tell if Hollywood has room for one more comeback story from an actor that everyone thought was washed up.
