Armie Hammer says he was sexually abused as teen, contemplated suicide after rape allegation

Armie Hammer is breaking his silence for the first time since being accused of sexual abuse in January 2021. 

While the actor denied any criminal wrongdoing, he acknowledged that he was emotionally abusive towards his former partners — with whom he engaged in sexual activities while married to his now-estranged wife, Elizabeth Chambers — in an interview with Air Mail published Friday. Hammer also opened up about how he was sexually abused as a young teenager and said that he contemplated suicide a month after the allegations against him came to light. 

In the lengthy interview, Hammer said he was sexually abused when he was 13 by a youth pastor at his family’s church for nearly a year. The abuse, he explained, “set a dangerous precedent in my life” and led him to become interested in BDSM.

“What that did for me was it introduced sexuality into my life in a way that it was completely out of my control,” he said. “I was powerless in the situation. I had no agency in the situation. My interests then went to: I want to have control in the situation, sexually.”

Air Mail reported that the Social Network star spoke about his childhood abuse with an older friend, who has since died, and with his godmother, Candace Garvey, who confirmed Hammer’s account. 

Hammer also revealed that he experienced suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide amid the abuse accusations while quarantining in the Cayman Islands in February 2021.

“I just walked out into the ocean and swam out as far as I could and hoped that either I drowned, or was hit by a boat, or eaten by a shark,” Hammer said. “Then I realized that my kids were still on shore, and that I couldn’t do that to my kids.”

In January 2021, Hammer was publicly accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, who shared screenshots of messages allegedly sent by the actor that discussed both BDSM and his cannibalistic desires. Among his accusers was a woman named Effie Angelova, who claimed that Hammer sexually assaulted her during their off-and-on relationship. 

During a March 2021 press conference, Angelova alleged that over the course of their four-year relationship, Hammer “mentally, emotionally, and sexually” abused her and referenced a sexual encounter with him in 2017 in which he “violently raped me for over four hours in Los Angeles.” 

Hammer claims that the pair had planned the entire encounter over Facebook Messenger, though he has since deleted the messages. He told Air Mail that his lawyers have attempted to subpoena Meta to retrieve them, but they have not been successful.

“If I still had these messages, I would have been able to put this to bed in .5 seconds,” he said. “This alleged rape was a scene that was her idea. She planned all of the details out, all the way down to what Starbucks I would see her at, how I would follow her home, how her front door would be open and unlocked and I would come in, and we would engage in what is called a ‘consensual non-consent scene,’ CNC.” 

He added, “Every single thing was discussed beforehand. I have never thrust this on someone unexpectedly. Never.” Hammer also stated that he has “no interest in retribution” against Angelova.

He did acknowledge, however, that “the power dynamics were off” in their relationship and that he was “one million percent” emotionally abusive towards other partners, including Paige Lorenze and Courtney Vucekovich. The latter previously discussed her relationship with Hammer in Discovery+’s 2022 Hammer family docuseries, House of Hammer.

“I would have these younger women in their mid-20s, and I’m in my 30s,” Hammer told Air Mail. “I was a successful actor at the time. They could have been happy to just be with me and would have said yes to things that maybe they wouldn’t have said yes to on their own. That’s an imbalance of power in the situation.”

In the wake of the allegations against him, Hammer’s talent agency, WME, and his publicist dropped him. He also departed multiple film projects he was previously slated to star in, including the 2022 rom-com Shotgun Wedding with Jennifer Lopez, Gaslit with Julia Roberts and Sean Penn, and the Paramount+ Godfather-adjacent television series The Offer. 

But, as Hammer told Air Mail, he wouldn’t change a thing about what happened over the past two years.

“I’m here to own my mistakes, take accountability for the fact that I was an a–hole,” he said. “That I was selfish, that I used people to make me feel better, and when I was done, moved on. And treated people more poorly than they should have been treated.”

Now, Hammer said, he’s a “healthier, happier, more balanced person” and is currently working as a sober companion, adding, “I’m truly grateful for my life and my recovery and everything. I would not go back and undo everything that’s happened to me.”

He also understands that his chances of being welcomed back into Hollywood anytime soon are slim. “No one will hire me. No one will insure me. I can’t get bonded for a project — nothing,” he said. “And no one will touch me because if they hire me, then they are the people who support abusers.”

Hammer continued, “And then they’re liable to get canceled themselves because this fire that is burning itself through town — when they throw someone like me on the fire to protect themselves, what they don’t realize is happening is all they’re doing is making the fire bigger. And that fire is now out of control and it’s going to burn everyone. And they’re just continually throwing people on it as sacrifices to protect themselves.”

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