Content warning: the following article describes sexual acts that some may find disturbing.
Is it too soon, or just too awful? Dakota Johnson was not afraid to address the Armie Hammer-shaped elephant in the room in her speech at the Sundance Film Festival in honor of director Luca Guadagnino, who she worked with on Suspiria and A Bigger Splash. The actress went there and actually made a cannibalism joke, in reference to accusations from different women leveled against Hammer, with reactions to Johnson’s statement being mixed, to say the least.
Johnson joked that she was offered the role of the infamous peach that Timothée Chalamet uses as a sex toy in Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, but couldn’t accept due to scheduling conflicts. “Thank god, though,” she continued. “I would have been another woman that Armie Hammer would have tried to eat.” Yikes. Nervous laughter and whooping from the audience ensued, followed by scattered applause.
In 2021, a previous flame of Hammer shared several screenshots of a conversation between the two where the actor allegedly comments on how he wants to drink her blood and eat her organs, also stating “I am 100% a cannibal.” The same woman later accused the actor of raping her. Hammer has denied it all, but his career was completely destroyed in the wake of the accusations.
Everyone is free to have their own opinions on whether Johnson’s joke was too inappropriate, but she doubled down with a follow-up about Guadagnino’s 2022 film Bones and All, which is also about cannibalism. “Who knew cannibalism was so popular?” she quipped.
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.