(NewsNation) — Over three years ago, actor Armie Hammer was publicly accused of cannibalism, now he says he is “grateful” that the allegations upended his career.
“People called me a cannibal, and everyone believed them,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Yep, that guy ate people’… Do you know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to eat people. How am I going to be a cannibal? It was bizarre.”
The “Call Me By Your Name” actor spoke about how the allegations against him impacted him and his career on a recent episode of the Painful Lessons podcast.
“I’m actually now at a place where I’m really grateful for it, because where I was in my life before all of that stuff happened to me, I didn’t feel good. I never felt satisfied. I never had enough. I never was in a place where I was happy with myself, where I had self-esteem. I never knew how to give myself love.”
Along with accusations of cannibalism, Hammer was also accused of sexual misconduct and rape. In 2021, multiple women claimed the actor shared violent sexual fantasies with them through messages on social media — some of which contained cannibalism references.
Hammer called the allegations “bulls**t” at the time, Entertainment Tonight reported.
The same year, another woman came forward, accusing Hammer of violent sexual assault for more than four hours in 2017. She said she tried to get away, but she “thought that he was going to kill me.” Two years later Los Angeles County prosecutors said he would not face criminal charges in the case.
In the wake of the allegations against him, Hammer was dropped by his talent agency and left two big Hollywood projects. His fall from grace and the accusations against him became the subject of a Discovery+ docuseries “House of Hammer.”
On the recent podcast episode, he revealed that he was “never in a place where I was happy with myself” before the accusations and explained how they caused “an ego death, a career death,” prompting him to eventually turn to rehab and a 12-step program.
“It’s almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life,” he said. “It killed me, it killed my ego, it killed all the people around me that I thought were my friends that weren’t. All of those people, in a flash, went away. But the buildings were still standing. I’m still here. I still have my health and I’m really grateful for that.”