Facebook did more than just revolutionize the social media landscape. It also gave us Armie Hammer. The young actor was just 24 years old when he made his big-screen debut in The Social Network as the Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron. His role was highly praised, as was the film, and the future was bright for Hollywood’s next big superstar.
Subsequent films like J. Edgar, Mirror Mirror, The Lone Ranger, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E saw Hammer star alongside Hollywood’s big-hitters like Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp, and Henry Cavill — but something interesting happened. Armie Hammer didn’t find the level of success in the leading man role that Hollywood was hoping for. The spotlight apparently didn’t love him back.
BuzzFeed famously commented on this in their 2017 op-ed, Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen by Anne Helen Petersen with the subheading: How many second chances does a handsome white male star get?
Hammer’s response to the piece was a tweet in which he called the writer “bitter AF,” even though the piece itself was “spot on.” His career was still years away from crumbling — something it’s currently doing right before our eyes — but 2017 was a clear turning point in the actor’s soon-to-be-tarnished legacy.
Here’s a look at the controversies that have, in one way or another, led to Armie Hammer’s downfall.
It all started with a sex joke
In June 2013, Hammer was asked by Playboy about his obsession with tying knots, a passion he’d been vocal about in the past, admitting to keeping a rope and knot guide on his person at all times. Additionally, his social media habits were gaining public scrutiny with people catching on to his tendency of liking posts that involved bondage. Hammer gave context to it all with his quote to Playboy.
“I don’t know how much we can put here without my parents being embarrassed, but I used to like to be a dominant lover. I liked the grabbing of the neck and the hair and all that. But then you get married and your sexual appetites change. And I mean that for the better—it’s not like I’m suffering in any way. But you can’t really pull your wife’s hair. It gets to a point where you say, ‘I respect you too much to do these things that I kind of want to do.’”
His ten-year marriage to TV personality and journalist, Elizabeth Chambers came to a screeching halt in 2020 due to an alleged resurgence in said sexual appetites, but not before leaving a trail of controversial breadcrumbs in its wake.
In 2019, Hammer raised eyebrows on Instagram when he posted a disturbing video of his then 2 year-old son Ford sucking on his toes. The clip was short, thankfully, but the caption read “This happened for a solid 7 minutes. #footfetishonfleek.”
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Hammer and his family packed up their things and moved to a luxury villa in the Cayman Islands where his father and stepmother resided. However, quarantining under the same roof proved too difficult, and the actor reportedly fled in the dead of night.
“It was a very complicated, intense situation, with big personalities all locked in a little tiny place,” he told British GQ. “I don’t think I handled it very well. I think, to be quite frank, I came very close to completely losing my mind.”
Things quickly went from bad to worse when the Call Me By Your Name star returned to the U.S. where he reportedly sent a raunchy text to his wife on accident, one that had been meant for someone else, according to Vanity Fair. His wife filed for divorce shortly thereafter, but that was only the beginning of Hammer’s troubles.
The straw that broke the camel’s back
The following section describes sexual acts that are disturbing and may be triggering to those who are victims of sexual assault.
At the onset of 2021, Hammer tweeted several cryptic, yet optimistic posts such as “2021 is going to kneel down before me and kiss my feet because this year I’m the boss,” and “2020 was a cheap shot no one was expecting. Now I know what we are up against and it’s time to go to war.”
However, his reasons for optimism slowly diminished as 2021 quickly became his year of ruin. Claims of cannibalism found their way online when Instagram user @houseofeffie shared dozens of screenshots of a private conversation between her and Hammer where he claimed to be “100% a cannibal.” In the screenshots he allegedly claimed he wanted to drink her blood and ingest various bodily organs.
The allegations were never substantiated and Hammer later told TMZ, “I’m not responding to these bulls–t claims, but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for four months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic.”
He subsequently backed out of two high-profile projects including a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez and a biographical miniseries, The Offer about the making of The Godfather. Not long after, he was dropped by his agency.
Hammer’s ex-wife Chambers opened up on Instagram. “For weeks, I’ve been trying to process everything that has transpired,” she said, adding that she was “shocked, heartbroken, and devastated.” According to Vanity Fair she joked with friends that the only thing that made sense about her failed marriage was that it resembled “the Netflix movie starring Zac Efron as Ted Bundy—Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.” Ted Bundy was a known serial killer and rapist whose charisma and charm led to the confessed murder of over 30 woman.
Before things got even worse — because they did — a video surfaced online of Hammer standing in front of his bed on top of which was a woman in lingerie. The caption read “Well…my ex (for a very good reason) wife is refusing to come back to america with my children. So I have to go back to Cayman…which sucks. Except there are a few silver linings. Like f****** Ms. Cayman again while I’m down there.”
The “Ms. Cayman” in the video was not the Miss. Cayman, which Hammer explained in an apology statement to the Cayman Compass. “I am genuinely sorry for any confusion my foolish attempt at humor may have caused,” he said.
Then, in March 2021, Hammer’s life imploded as Effie Angelova of @houseofeffie came forth at a press conference with testimony that the Call Me By Your Name actor had “violently” raped her back in 2017. Her testimony sent shock waves across the internet and resulted in an investigation with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Hammer checked himself into a Florida rehab center soon after, according to Vanity Fair.
Only the tip of the iceberg
Armie Hammer has taken a step back since his fall from grace, with no upcoming projects in the pipeline and only a vague assumption of his return. After 2021, it’s likely we won’t see him in any film or show in very long time. His last project was Death on the Nile in 2022.
Recently, he was seen selling timeshare in the Cayman Islands, leading many to believe he is now broke. What’s more, his notorious past has become the subject of a new true crime docuseries on Discovery Plus, titled House of Hammer.
The docuseries doesn’t have a release date or a synopsis yet, but it will likely focus on the controversial allegations that have led to his fall from grace. It will also likely focus on the scandalous lives of his family members, dating all the way back to his great-great-grandfather, Dr. Julius Hammer. Above all, it will highlight the supposed “dark side” to the Hammer family.
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-If you are experiencing domestic abuse, or if you believe someone you know is being abused, contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE or spoken with online via the hotline’s website. Mobile phone owners can also text “START” to the number 88788.
