Disgraced actor Armie Hammer fired back at allegations that he’s a cannibal in a new interview with Piers Morgan.
“You know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to have actually eaten someone,” Hammer replied when the British journalist asked him about his fantasies. “This was a very intense affair — very sexually charged — between two people with very similar proclivities and kinks,” he said of the accusations made by Efrosina “Effie” Angelova.
But he acknowledged that “conversations that (he and Angelova) had inside of that relationship, when you take them outside of that context and put them into broad daylight, it doesn’t look so good.”
Hammer said “different people have different sexual fantasies.
“There’s a very broad spectrum of sexuality and people are allowed to engage with their own sexuality however it fits them and what they do,” he said.
Hammer said the talk of cannibalism was an element of their role-playing that was “born out of a desire to, sort of like, ‘I want you so completely,’ and, ‘I want you so totally,’ that it’s almost like, ‘I want to eat you.’”
Hammer said his words were taken out of context: “I don’t think that’s any different than when someone looks at a baby and goes, ‘Oh my God, look at those cute, little, fat legs, I just want to eat you up.’”
Hammer’s wife Elizabeth Chambers filed for divorce in 2020. Months later, he was accused of rape by Angelova, who alleged she was subjected to a four-hour ordeal in 2017.
In an effort to refute her allegations, Hammer and his legal team provided screenshots of alleged text conversations between him and Angelova.
The Call Me by Your Name star’s lawyer also said Hammer’s encounter with Angelova was “completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory.”
Another former partner, Courtney Vucekovich, told Page Six that Hammer “likes the idea of skin in his teeth.
“He said to me he wants to break my rib and barbecue and eat it,” Vucekovich said.
Hammer’s former girlfriend, Paige Lorenze, also spoke out about their relationship, telling Vanity Fair that she felt “unsafe” during her short-lived romance with the actor.
“He started making rules for me of things I could and couldn’t do, who I could have over, who I couldn’t. He told me that I couldn’t have anyone else in my bed.”
Lorenze also accused the actor of branding her with a knife, which he denied in his conversation with Morgan.
“I wouldn’t say brand. No. … There was a scenario that we talked about beforehand, where I would basically take a little, tiny point and just kind of trace the letter ‘A,’” Hammer said. “Just like the tip of a small knife. … I mean, there wasn’t even blood in the situation. It was more like a scrape. It’s along the lines of couples getting their own initials tattooed on each other.”
Hammer was also accused of sending cannibalism and rape messages to a series of other women. The actor denied the “bulls— claims,” but the controversy cost him a slew of roles, including in Jennifer Lopez’s Shotgun Wedding and The Offer, a series about the making of The Godfather. He was also dropped by his publicist and agent.
The Golden Globe nominee was investigated by LAPD, but ultimately no charges were brought against The Social Network actor, who maintained that all of the behavior in his relationships was consensual.
Although he was largely shunned by the rest of Hollywood, Hammer said that several colleagues reached out, including Robert Downey Jr. But despite rumours that the Marvel star paid for him to attend rehab, Hammer said he “did not.
“I don’t want to bring anyone else into my situation,” Hammer said. “There are a number of people who have been extremely helpful and I’m incredibly grateful.”
Asked for the advice Downey gave him, Hammer said the Oscar winner told him: “Sit down, shut up, everything is going to be OK.”
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Hammer also said Lone Ranger co-star Johnny Depp, who faced his own public downfall after his ex-wife Amber Heard accused him of abuse, connected with him.
“We’ve communicated a few times … phone, FaceTime,” Hammer said. “I didn’t bring (my issues) to him, he didn’t bring his to me. It was more of a social call — ‘How are you? Good to see you, glad you’re still alive.’ That kind of thing.”
But he admitted that he behaved badly and ruined his marriage to the mother of his two children.
“I cheated on my wife. I used people to make me feel better. I was callous and inconsiderate with people and their emotions and their well-being. … And that is s—– behaviour,” Hammer said. “There are things in my behaviour that I have to take accountability for, right? Because that is pivotal for me: Learning and growing from it.”
Hammer’s return to the public eye has included a recent appearance on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, where he said being “cancelled” was “liberating.”
“Had none of this gone on … my life would have kept going exactly as it was,” Hammer told Maher. “And I know that that would ultimately only lead in one place and that’s death.”
When he popped up on his pal Tyler Ramsey’s Painful Lessons podcast last month, Hammer said he was “grateful” for the scandal that ruined his career.
“Everything in my life falls apart. I lose all my representation. I lose all of my work. I lose everything (and) think this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me … Whatever it was that people said, whatever it was that happened, I’m now at a place in my life where I’m grateful for every single bit of it,” he said.