Hammer armie

hammer armie

From the MagazineMay 2021 IssueThe actor’s life seemed perfect—beautiful wife and kids, sparkling Hollywood career. But a glimpse into his family history reveals how shocking allegations over dark fantasies of cannibalism and bondage—and the ensuing fallout—are one more chapter in the Hammers’ fraught legacy.

By Julie Miller

March 11, 2021Armie Hammer

Armie Hammer already needed crisis therapy.

The world was under lockdown last summer, and Hammer had been quarantining at a luxury villa in the Cayman Islands with his father, Michael, his stepmother, Misty, his two young children, and his wife of a decade, Elizabeth. 

“It was a very complicated, intense situation, with big personalities all locked in a little tiny place,” Hammer told British GQ last September. “I don’t think I handled it very well. I think, to be quite frank, I came very close to completely losing my mind.”

He compared himself to a trapped wolf who wants to “chew his own foot off.”

Hammer had been so desperate to escape the Caymans that he booked a flight back to the U.S. A source close to Elizabeth claims that his decision to flee his family during a pandemic was the final straw in a marriage that had already been tested by infidelity; she filed for divorce in July. By January 1, Hammer seemed to have rebounded romantically with a series of short-term girlfriends and was ready to face the world anew: “2021 is going to kneel down before me and kiss my feet because this year I’m the boss,” Hammer tweeted. “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.”

Several weeks later, however, Hammer found himself in a darker crisis. Amid the turmoil of divorce proceedings, several women took to social media to accuse the actor of emotional abuse, manipulation, and violence. The scandal ballooned as screengrabs circulated that seemed to show the actor describing sexual fantasies involving rape and cannibalism. Hammer stepped away from two high-profile projects, a rom-com with Jennifer Lopez and a Paramount series about the making of The Godfather. Shortly after, his agency, WME, dropped him.

For the people who know Hammer’s family—peppered with Russian communists and American oil tycoons—the allegations are an unsurprising development to a long and sordid history with drugs, sex, dysfunction, and betrayal. Many men in the Hammer family have a dark side, sources close to the family say, one that looms across five consecutive generations.

SINS OF THE FATHERS

The family’s first brush with scandal was in 1919, when Armie’s great-great-grandfather, Dr. Julius Hammer, gave the wife of a Russian diplomat an abortion. Julius was a Russian immigrant living in the Bronx and a central member of the Communist Party of the United States, according to biographer Edward Jay Epstein, who published Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer, in 1996. The woman, Marie Oganesoff, died days later. Julius was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 3 and a half to 12 years in Sing Sing.

With Julius in prison, his 22-year-old son, Armand Hammer (Armie’s namesake), abandoned a medical career to take over his father’s other business, Allied Drug. According to Epstein, Vladimir Lenin sent a message to Joseph Stalin encouraging “particular support” for Armand, telling him, “This is a small path to the American ‘business’ world and this path should be made use of in every way.” Armand moved to the Soviet Union in 1921 for about a decade to fortify family connections. While there, he married a Russian singer named Olga and together they had a son named Julian—Armie’s grandfather.

By the 1950s, Armand had divorced Olga as well as a second wife, Angela, who had told the court that, due to his time in Russia and his medical training, “[it] causes him no pain to see the sufferings of others.” He moved to Los Angeles, married a wealthy woman named Frances Barrett Tolman in 1956, invested her money in the then failing Occidental Petroleum, and drove the company to incredible success.

Armand tried to distance himself from his Soviet connections, reimagining himself as a self-made industrialist—he even hired a journalist to ghostwrite a memoir, The Remarkable Life of Dr. Armand Hammer. He had a private Boeing 727; palled around with Prince Charles and high-powered politicians (he was a close friend of Senator Al Gore Sr. and attended the inaugurations of FDR, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, among other presidents); collected expensive artwork; and convinced Chinese leaders to lend two pandas to Los Angeles for the city’s 1984 Olympics. He died in 1990.

But in 1996, Epstein’s bombshell biography exposed the late Occidental Petroleum chairman for wide-ranging grifts, including laundering money; using artwork to fund Soviet espionage; bribing his way into the oil business; and knocking off Fabergé eggs. Per Epstein, Armand bugged his office and home, plus his cuff links, to record decades’ worth of conversations, had a fixer, and was known to do business with a briefcase full of cash. He also made an illegal contribution to the Nixon reelection campaign which, “in all likelihood,” according to The New York Times, “went to help pay for the Watergate cover-up.” Though he faced a felony charge for obstructing justice, a Washington lawyer helped him plead guilty to misdemeanor charges, and H. W. Bush later pardoned him.

Armand had multiple mistresses, including Martha Kaufman—a mother of two who divorced her husband after meeting Armand, and whom he put on Occidental’s payroll as an art consultant. When Armand’s wife, Frances, grew suspicious, Armand had Martha legally change her name to Hilary Gibson—insisting, according to Epstein, that his mistress wear wigs, glasses, and makeup to change her appearance. The affair lasted over a decade, with Armand promising to take care of her and her children after he died, she later told Epstein. Per the biographer, she drove a car with a homing device, used a tapped phone, and submitted to his sexual demands even when they were “extremely humiliating.” When Armand died, she learned that he had left her out of his will.

“Everything he did was public,” said Casey Hammer, Armand’s granddaughter and Armie’s aunt, who is estranged from most of her family and works as a kitchen designer at a San Diego Home Depot. “God forbid you did anything wrong in front of his friends. You couldn’t wear the same dress twice to his gala parties. On the outside, we had to be the perfect family.” But behind the scenes, Armand required his son, Julian, daughter-in-law Sue, and three grandchildren to make appointments to see him, Casey claimed. “I started watching Succession and I had to turn it off,” said Casey, “because it was like, ‘Oh, my God. That’s my family.’”

Julian was extremely bright, but Armand didn’t seem to care much for his only child, and passed him over entirely when he left Julian’s son, Michael—Armie’s father—his business empire. Casey believes her father, Julian, caused too much trouble, and was an affront to Armand’s obsession with appearances. As she said, he “could never get my grandfather’s attention unless he resorted to really, really bad behavior.”

In the morning hours after Julian’s 26th birthday, in 1955, he killed a man inside his Los Angeles home over a gambling debt and supposed advances on his wife, Glenna Sue. The front-page headlines read “Millionaire’s Son Kills GI.” Armand had a friend deliver $50,000 in cash to a lawyer in Los Angeles. Julian claimed self-defense, and charges were dismissed.

In her self-published 2015 book, Surviving My Birthright, Casey alleges that Julian sexually abused her when she was a child, and that Julian was abusive to others in the family, allegations she also made to Epstein. In an email, Jan Ward, Casey and Michael’s half sister, declined to comment on the allegations, instead offering this statement: “I will say that I love my family very much which includes my brother, my sister, and my nephews…I do have wonderful memories of us kids spending every summer at Laguna Beach with our Grandma Olga and spending the holidays with our parents and grandparents. We were all blessed to be able to attend excellent schools thanks to Grandpa Hammer who was a great supporter of education. Our family taught us the value of hard work and I have had a fulfilling career and a wonderful family life.”

Like his father, Michael struggled with excess. In 1985, Michael, then working at Occidental, met Dru Mobley on a plane. The lore, as Armie told New York magazine’s Vulture: “My dad was supposed to be on a flight, went to the airport, and got hammered and passed out…He missed his flight, woke up, and was like, ‘Oh God, I have a meeting.’” He rebooked, switched seats due to claustrophobia, and wound up next to Dru. They married that year and had Armie the next. The devout Christian Dru seemed to have a tempering effect on Michael’s own vice struggles, which he has said included drinking and drugs. “When I accepted Christ,” Michael has said, “the [bad experiences] didn’t just stop, but they started dwindling.”

DADDY ISSUES

If Armand wanted to keep the empire he built in the family, he didn’t have many options. His son, Julian, was addled and unreliable, and his grandson, Michael, by multiple accounts, was not as bright, and more interested in a playboy lifestyle than world domination. When Armie was four, his great-grandfather Armand, estimated by Forbes to be worth around $180 million, died. The battle for the estate began almost immediately, and still simmers 30 years later. Within hours of Armand’s death, police officers who were summoned to the house observed Michael attempting to remove belongings and load them into five waiting cars. (The house, which had been owned by the late Frances, was to be turned over to Frances’s niece upon Armand’s death.) Casey and Hilary claimed that Armand had made promises to his family that his estate would take care of them. But at the will reading in a Los Angeles law office, his heirs learned he’d only left behind a piddly $40 million; Casey and her father would each receive just $250,000. In addition to cutting Julian out, Armand name-checked Jan—Sue’s daughter from another relationship, and thereby his step-granddaughter—as having no claim to his estate.

“All of a sudden, I’m in a bad Stephen King novel,” Casey said. “My father is worried about why Michael got the Rolls-Royce. And I’m like, ‘Dad, you don’t understand. You’re going to be out on the street, no one’s paying for your house, no one’s paying for anything.’” The next day, Casey said that she sat with Julian “so he doesn’t blow his brains out because now he’s threatening to kill me, he’s threatening to kill Michael, he’s threatening to kill everybody.”

In total, 100 claims and lawsuits were filed against Armand’s estate—by Casey, by former mistresses, by charities that alleged that the late tycoon owed them, according to The Washington Post. (Casey says that she settled for about $1.4 million. Per Epstein, Hilary Gibson settled for $4.2 million.) The inheritance battle tore the family apart. Michael’s own mother, Sue Kane, told The Washington Post that her son “forgot about us,” instead favoring Dru’s family. Rumors still linger that Armand had stockpiled large sums in cash lockboxes and secret overseas bank accounts, and those were inflamed when Scott Deitrick—Michael’s college friend whom Michael appointed as vice president of the Armand Hammer Foundation—was arrested after a flight back from London with $60,000 in undeclared cash. “According to Twin Cities news stories at the time, Deitrick’s passport recorded nearly 12 trips abroad lasting less than 36 hours,” reported The Washington Post. (Michael posted the $250,000 bail and Deitrick was later acquitted of cash-smuggling charges.)

Armand had yearned for a legacy, spending over $100 million to build the Hammer Museum. But in 1994, according to The Washington Post, Michael turned the Hammer Museum over to the UCLA art department. He also asked the Metropolitan Museum of Art to remove Armand’s name from the Hall of Arms and Armor rather than pay the remaining $1 million on his grandfather’s pledge. Even though Armand had spent his final years recommitting himself to the Jewish faith—he didn’t live to celebrate a belated bar mitzvah for himself in his 92nd year—Michael began redirecting the Hammer Foundation’s funds to Christian groups like Jews for Jesus and Italy for Christ.

As of 2021, Armand’s name no longer graces the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it fronts the student center at Oral Roberts University, a Christian school where Dru is a board trustee. In the last two decades, ProPublica’s tax record database shows, the foundation has donated over $3 million to the university, and another over $4 million to the Pentecostal Dream Centers, among a smattering of other causes, religious and not.

Julian died in 1996. The year after, Michael moved Dru, Armie, and his younger son, Viktor, to a seaside condo on Grand Cayman—briefly relinquishing his U.S. citizenship in the ’90s. The move, according to Armie, was predicated on Michael’s having been a big fan of The Firm, the movie in which Tom Cruise travels to the Caribbean tax haven.

Ten years later the family returned to California, but the transition away from the Caribbean was rocky. In 2005, the 21-room manor in Pasadena that the family was renovating burnt down, resulting in $15 million worth of damages. In 2011, Michael spent the night in a Santa Barbara jail for a DUI charge that was subsequently dropped. Later that year, significantly bigger trouble blew the Hammers’ way when his Knoedler Gallery—part of Michael’s inheritance from Armand, and one of the oldest New York galleries—shuttered suddenly. The next day, the gallery and its former director Ann Freedman were sued by hedge fund executive Pierre Lagrange for selling him a forged Pollock painting for $17 million. In the years and lawsuits that followed, Knoedler was accused of selling about $70 million worth of fake paintings—all painted by a little-known artist in Queens—in a con that allegedly stretched back to 1994. In total, Knoedler was accused of selling 63 forged pieces. All of the 10 lawsuits filed against Knoedler were settled, one midway through a high-profile trial in 2016—with Domenico De Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International and Sotheby’s, and his wife, Eleanor, seeking $25 million in damages.

During the trial, a Knoedler accountant testified that Michael Hammer had essentially used the 8-31 Holdings group, which owned the gallery, as his personal piggy bank—using a company credit card to buy, among other things, two luxury cars and a trip to Paris for a little over $1 million. When Hammer sold one of the cars, a Rolls-Royce, in 2008, he kept the $452,000 sale, listing it on his W-2 as salary.

About an hour before Michael was scheduled to testify both parties reached a settlement. Though some in the art world predicted that Knoedler’s downfall would damage Michael’s—and tangentially, even Armie’s—reputation, it didn’t seem to.

“We call these guys the lucky sperm club here,” said a person with ties to the family. “Never accomplished anything. They know a whole lot about spending other people’s money.” If there is another skill Michael appears to have, it is hiring good lawyers. Various sources who wanted to speak about the specifics of Michael’s business and personal tactics—many of them women—say they are frightened to speak on record, or have signed paperwork prohibiting them from doing so. Michael’s current lawyer, Tom Clare, is representing Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell—seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages from each man for claiming the company’s voting machines were used to steal the 2020 election.

In spite of the scandals, Michael remains a regular fixture in Montecito society pages, at old car shows, and around charity events benefiting the Santa Barbara police. In 2015, the same year the Armand Hammer Foundation made a $1.1 million donation to the Petersen Automotive Museum, the organization added Michael to its board of directors. The endowment he is most proud of, multiple people say, is his own. For years, three people claimed, Michael boasted about a sex throne or “naughty chair,” as he has called it, that he kept in Armand Hammer Foundation headquarters in Carpinteria—a warehouse where two people claim Michael lived for several years after his divorce. The structure, about seven feet high, features a chair with a hole in the seat, a cage underneath, and a hook. The Hammer coat of arms—the same one that, for years, adorned the exterior of the headquarters—is painted on the seat. In one photo Michael sits atop the throne grinning while holding the head of a blonde woman, sitting in the cage and also smiling. In response to Vanity Fair’s questions about Michael’s sex throne, drug and alcohol use, finances, and history with women, Clare, counsel for Michael Hammer and the Armand Hammer Foundation, said, “These questions, which ask about unsolicited gag gifts sent by friends, conduct that sounds pretty typical of recently-divorced people, and entirely legal financial transactions that were properly accounted for, are absurd.”

One former friend, who knew of the sex throne, said that, when he heard about Armie’s alleged kinks, “I was not the least bit surprised.”

In 2017—several years after he and Dru divorced—Michael proposed to Misty Millward, a Four Seasons The Biltmore spa “healer,” in Michael’s words, who helped him recover from back surgery, with a seven-and-a-half-carat diamond on the Fourth of July. Speaking to the Montecito Journal, Michael said that his proposal had a patriotic theme: a red alligator-skin Birkin bag; Armand’s white Rolls, in which he popped the question; and the blue of his very own eyes.

CALL HIM BY HIS NAME

Armie has the same blue eyes. And the family name tattooed on his wrist. When Armie Hammer broke through in Hollywood, with 2010’s The Social Network, the sordid lore of his family backstory was a footnote, whether forgotten or purposely ignored.

To the world Armie Hammer was simply a cartoon-prince-handsome scion. It’s easy to discount a beautiful person, especially a beautiful person with a famous last name, as being one-dimensional. But Armie spent many interviews over his decade-long career telegraphing his own texture.

In 2018, Armie told Conan O’Brien about his own arrest in 2011—the same year that Michael was pulled over for a DUI in Santa Barbara. Armie and a friend had been transporting supplies for Elizabeth’s bakery, Bird, through Texas when their truck was stopped at a checkpoint and a dog sniffed the marijuana. Armie spent the night in jail. “The inmates were great,” Armie said after cameras cut to a mug shot showing him tanned with a popped collar. “The guards were real assholes.”

And yes, he was raised in “the fucking paradise”of the Cayman Islands and “used to have a painting of Gorbachev that was given to my family by Gorbachev.” But he was also raised with good values, thanks to Dru, he has said.

“My mother’s parents grew up in the Depression in Oklahoma, so it was very different,” Armie told GQ. “She didn’t allow us to be raised like we were wealthy. We were never just told, ‘Hey, here’s [some cash]...If our friends were getting a $10 allowance, she would make a point of giving us $7.”

He has claimed financial independence from his family throughout his career—“I’m really proud of that”—so much so that, in 2017, he confessed he couldn’t pay out a bet he had made to filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. “It would literally bankrupt me, and I need to buy diapers tomorrow.” 

Armie’s upbringing, through his own eyes, was picaresque. As a child in the Cayman Islands, he told Details in 2011, he was a machete-wielding, tree-climbing Tom Sawyer. As an adolescent in Los Angeles, after a family move, he was an outcast truant who identified with Macaulay Culkin’s Home Alone character, set school property ablaze, and dropped out of high school. His image-conscious and outwardly religious parents, Armie said, disapproved of his decision to act. “My entire life has been this long, pressured conversation about the family I represented,” Armie has said, recalling Armand’s own ethos. “When you walk out the door, you represent us.” Eventually, Armie found success doing it. When Armie booked a starring role as a young Billy Graham in the 2008 biopic Billy: The Early Years, Dru hosted a screening for about 300 friends at the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater, confirmed two people with knowledge of the event.

The year after Armie appeared as the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, Armie costarred with Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar. A run at marquee stardom followed—the rom-com Mirror Mirror with Julia Roberts; the action epic The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp; and the 2015 caper film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. alongside Henry Cavill—but fizzled. Armie developed a sense of humor about his lack of success as a leading man. Asked about the low box office return of one film, he deadpanned, “That might be the Armie Hammer effect.” As if the box office busts weren’t ego-damaging enough, BuzzFeed piled on with a damning feature by Anne Helen Petersen titled “Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen.” The subheading said it all, and still does: “How many second chances does a handsome white male star get?”

Guadagnino saw grit beneath Armie’s surface, though, and cast him in 2017’s Oscar-winning indie Call Me by Your Name. “It’s not just that he’s beautiful-looking,” said the filmmaker. “It’s that plus his inner turmoil that is fascinating to me.” The performance earned Armie a Golden Globe nomination—the most acclaim of his career. But he bristled in one press interview, telling Andy Cohen that his religious mother, Dru, refused to see the film—because the drama centers on a same-sex romance. “It goes against a lot of her very strong religious beliefs,” he said.

Occasional familial venting aside, Armie looked the part of the perfect movie star. “He’s like this classical leading man...somebody who’s a little out of time, like seeing Gary Cooper walk into a supermarket or something,” said Armie’s Lone Ranger director, Gore Verbinski. And in Elizabeth Chambers—a tough woman like Dru, but with an entrepreneurial spirit in lieu of an evangelical one—Armie seemingly found his match. “I mean, they are the Ken and Barbie of the world,” gushed Kathie Lee Gifford, a friend of the family’s, recalling the couple’s 2010 wedding.

Some people I spoke to described Armie as a sweet, goofy, unfiltered guy who loves his children. A what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person. Timothée Chalamet once described him as the example of “when people present themselves as they truly are. And Armie is as he truly is.” In hindsight Armie was perhaps more unfiltered than he or anyone realized.

To Elle: “One chick tried to stab me when we were having sex.… She was like, ‘True love leaves scars. You don’t have any.’ And then she tried to stab me with a butcher knife.” He continued to date her for seven months.

Also to Elle: He recalled a violent altercation with a homeless man. “My wife says I have a frontal lobe issue. Your frontal lobe controls your danger response, like, ‘Whoa, I shouldn’t be doing this.’”

To Details: He recounted the story of a multi-day, beer-soaked bachelor party that concluded with an epic bonfire, “a giant tequila bottle full of gasoline,” and a machine gun.

To Playboy: He discussed the effect Elizabeth had on his bedroom habits. “I used to like to be a dominant lover. I liked the grabbing of the neck and the hair and all that. Then you get married and your sexual appetites change....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 want to do.’”

After Playboy, Armie expressed regret, explaining that he had learned the hard way not to drink during interviews. But for a 2019 British GQ profile, Armie and the writer drank so many martinis that the writer blacked out.

His reported social-media-liking habits suggested that he was fond of bondage. And he has spoken profusely about his love of knots to Playboy (“a man’s version of knitting”), Stephen Colbert (whom he challenged to a knot-tying contest on The Late Show), and InStyle (“I’ve never admitted this before...sometimes I carry a rope to practice knots”).

A source close to Elizabeth said that, when he was not working, Armie would throw himself into hobbies with great intensity. Several years back Armie introduced Elizabeth to shibari, a Japanese bondage art form in which people are tied up in intricate patterns. Elizabeth tried to be supportive of the new interest, which Armie allegedly indulged by buying mannequins and inventing elaborate knots. Elizabeth even tried to find a lucrative spin on the obsession: “She suggested he write a book about a hobby called Why Knot?” laughed the friend.

“THE WEIRDEST FUCKING THING I’VE EVER HEARD”

Armie and Elizabeth had two children—a daughter in 2014 and a son in 2017, the latter of whom was given the middle name Armand as an homage to the Hammer lineage. According to a friend close to Elizabeth, Armie confessed to being unfaithful shortly after his son’s birth—but claimed it was a one-time offense. Years later, this friend says, Elizabeth found evidence of an affair Armie was having with a costar. The Hammers had been in expensive family therapy, but, to Elizabeth, the indiscretions—and more notably his decision to flee the family during a pandemic—were the final straw. When Armie touched down in the U.S., he mistakenly sent a raunchy text message meant for someone else to his estranged spouse. Elizabeth filed for divorce shortly after.

By his own admissions over the years, Armie has enjoyed partying—and, finally free from the restrictions of a decade-long marriage, he indulged freely. Friends close to the family remark that Armie’s separation behavior recalls Michael’s own. Michael’s post-split tear is said to have involved a string of women, illicit substances, and tattoos. It’s a popular misconception that the Hammers created the Arm Hammer baking soda brand—Armand settled for investing in it after his bid to buy the company was rejected—but Michael fuels it with a tattoo of the popular logo on his arm. The slogan for Arm Hammer is “the standard of purity”—but Michael allegedly embodied anything but. Michael, whom multiple people say has the mindset of a teenage boy, also allegedly documented some of his deeds—texting X-rated photos to friends.

Two people claim that Armie did the same, suddenly getting more than five tattoos in a matter of months—including an outline of the Caymans above his knee; a heart that was inked by the in-house tattoo artist at Kaia Gerber’s birthday party to match two teenage boys’; the letters “E.G.B.A.,” standing for “Everything’s gonna be alright”; and the word “chaos” because he wants his life to be chaos. Said one friend, “I’m pretty sure he’s accomplishing that.”

Armie also depicted a new dark side on his secret Instagram feed, @el_destructo_86. One photo, of him taking a drug test, was captioned: “All negative, bitches. My body is a finely tuned toxicant processing unit. To be fair I had THC and benzos in my piss. But who doesn’t.” Another photo showed a mannequin tied up, with the caption, “If quarantine doesn’t start moving more quickly I’m going to fuck this thing.”

Two women who knew Armie romantically in the last year say they were intoxicated by his charm—and that he was able to cycle through Romeo and Juliet-style romantic proclamations, teary family confessionals, and kinky bedroom scenarios with disorienting ease.

According to Courtney Vucekovich, Armie was on a flight out of the Cayman Islands—escaping the “intense” lockdown situation last June—when he messaged her on Instagram for the first time. The DMs came fast and furiously; the actor immediately spilled about the tense situation with what he described as his “crazy family”—describing near-fist fights with his father and a short-lived escape plan that involved taking a fishing boat to Cuba.

“Within the first five minutes, he was basically like, this all goes back to my horrible childhood,” said Vucekovich, the owner of an on-demand glam app called FLASHD. “It’s not the most romantic thing, but we bonded over past trauma.”

Armie earned her sympathy, according to Vucekovich, through full-court press. “Day one, he makes you feel bad for him; it’s when he makes himself look like a victim. Then he love-bombs you like crazy; you’ve never felt more special in your entire life. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re in a restaurant, and I’m sitting across from him, and he pulls my chair over, right next to him, in front of everybody—and is hugging and kissing you. You’re the only girl in the whole world. And then he starts the manipulation and the darker stuff.

“One of the most shocking things, that I realized he did to other women, is he says that he never tied up a human being before, only mannequins,” she continued. “I remember thinking, like, That’s got to be true because that’s the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Who would lie about that? That’s weirder than saying, ‘I tied up 25 people.’”

Vucekovich explained that one encounter, which took place on an evening in Sedona, Arizona, left her with regret. Armie, she said, was drinking heavily and persuaded her to participate in “a bondage scenario that I was not comfortable with.” He sulked, “cold and angry,” to convince her, and then, she said, “I eventually consented and really regretted doing so.”

As messy as it was, Vucekovich said she felt like it was a real relationship. Armie had introduced her to his mother, Dru, and talked about bringing her to the Dominican Republic while he filmed a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez. But just as fast as the relationship formed, in June, and intensified—the two were spending nearly every day together, she alleged—it ended in September. She checked herself into a treatment program for trauma.

In September the then 22-year-old Paige Lorenze met Armie. She, too, got an immediate barrage of sordid family secrets. “A lot of really dark stuff,” Lorenze said. “I felt confused why he was telling me this stuff so instantly...It was stuff I would never share off the bat...He said his grandfather was this kind of very scary person who had these crazy sex parties where there would be guns.” But, said Lorenze, there was an unmistakable tone of awe. “He thought it was cool and was proud of him in a way.”

Armie took Lorenze to Texas to meet his mother, like he had with Vucekovich. She enjoyed the trip because it felt like a “normal-relationship” thing to do, but suspected Armie’s relationship with Dru was complicated. His mother spoke of “the devil” trying to “take” Armie, and she worried that he didn’t believe in God.

Lorenze said that Dru let the two sleep in a bedroom together—jokingly pulling out a ruler and telling them to stay six feet apart—but immediately started grilling her about her religious beliefs. “She was very, very sweet to me. She instantly started talking to me: ‘Well, have I accepted the Holy Spirit?’ I’ve never been to such a Christian household.”

After a few days Lorenze said that Dru opened up to her “about how she was so worried about Armie and so grateful for me because she felt like I was a good influence on him. And that she just wanted him to accept God back into his life. And that he had just been fighting everything for a long time.”

During their time together, Lorenze said, Armie didn’t have any money. She said that she paid for “everything,” since Armie was only getting by on loans from friends.

Lorenze broke things off with Armie after “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. And then I just started to feel really unsafe and really sick to my stomach about things,” she said. “I was also emotionally dependent on him.” Lorenze ended the relationship over text “because you never know what you’re going to get with him—he’s kind of a scary person.”

Lorenze has since moved back to the East Coast and wants nothing to do with the entertainment business. She said she didn’t plan to speak—or think—about Armie Hammer again.

Then she saw messages posted on the anonymous @houseofeffie Instagram account, purported to be from Armie and detailing extreme BDSM scenarios. The date stamps ranged from 2016 to 2020—overlapping with Armie’s marriage to Elizabeth Chambers (who, through a representative, declined to be interviewed for this story).

“I saw these screenshots and my stomach just dropped, like, Holy fuck,” said Lorenze. “Because he would say things to me...weird stuff...like, ‘I want to eat your ribs,’” she said. “The scariest part of it is that I did love him in a way,” said Lorenze. “I would’ve let him kind of do anything. He had a certain hold over me.”

Lorenze said that she spoke up for several reasons: to support the other women coming forward, to hold Armie accountable for what she claims he did to her, and to open up conversations about consent. “Consent is really complicated—even if it’s consenting to something in vanilla sex that you don’t really want to do, and say yes to...it can be really traumatizing.” Lorenze said that she hopes to “start an organization that can advocate for safe sex and women learning how to say no.”

Armie’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, issued a statement about the various accusations that reads, “All interactions between Mr. Hammer and his former partners were consensual. They were fully discussed, agreed upon in advance with his partners, and mutually participatory. The stories perpetuated on social media were designed to be salacious in an effort to harm Mr. Hammer, but that does not make them true.”

The allegations raise a raft of complicated questions about consent, BDSM boundaries, and the intersection of abuse claims and social media. The lawyer Gloria Allred, who was representing the person behind @houseofeffie at the time of publication, acknowledged that consent is especially complex in the BDSM community, where control and power are kinks.

“The public has not been educated on how to view those who engage in BDSM practices. In addition, those who have heard of the BDSM community may have a negative opinion of those who engage in such practices,” said Allred. She noted that even if adults “consent to some BDSM practices, they still have a right to withhold consent to other practices.”

“Part of the problem is that the victim is extremely vulnerable and trusting,” she said, “and is often taken advantage of by sexual predators who know that many of their victims will be afraid to report the crimes against them for fear of being blamed and shamed and not believed when they say that they did not consent to crimes against them.”

No criminal charges or lawsuits have been filed against the actor. Those in Armie’s camp mainly blame the scandal on the unverified gossip account @deuxmoi, which published and proliferated its Armie claims to more than 750,000 users in January. “You used to have to verify facts before making allegations like this,” said one friend, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He’s being attacked from all different angles on unverified claims...It’s hard for people around him to watch this.”

It is also important to note that no one has actually accused Armie of acting on his alleged cannibalistic fantasies—and he has never confirmed the texts are his own—but the impulses he purportedly described in messages to various women are unsettling at best:

“I am 100% a cannibal…. Fuck. That’s scary to admit. I’ve never admitted that before. I’ve cut the heart out of a living animal before and eaten it while still warm.”

“I want to see your brain, your blood, your organs, every part of you. I would definitely bite it. 100%. Or try to fuck it. Not sure which. Probably both.”

“If I fucked you into a vegetative state id keep you, feed you, watch you, and keep fucking you...Till you are so sore and broken…. I can’t stop thinking of [fucking] your actual brain.”

“Brand you, tattoo you, mark you, shave your head and keep your hair with me, cut a piece of your skin off and make you cook it for me…. “Who’s slave/master relationship is the strongest?” We’d win. When I tell you to slit your wrists and use the blood for anal.”

“Raping you on your floor with a knife against you. Everything else seemed boring. You crying and screaming, me standing over you. I felt like a god. I’ve never felt such power or intensity.”

If Armie is guilty of anything, his friend says, it’s having a penchant for super-kinky sex. Katharine Gates, a social anthropologist and the author of Deviant Desires, told The Cut in January that there is indeed a cannibal form of sex role play that tends to “involve more realistic scenarios...[but i]t’s still fantasy—they’re not actually eating pieces of people, but you will have one person be the meat and another is the preparer.” Victoria Hartmann, author of I Love Dead People: Inside the Minds of Death Fetishists, told GQ that most people into cannibalism role play are not interested in actually harming anyone. Because of the confusion and taboos, Armie’s friend thinks that the actor is being unfairly targeted and embarrassed.

One person who has known both Armie and Elizabeth for a decade thinks Armie’s “very dry sense of humor” and a lack of context around the text messages are to blame. When the rib-eating, toe-cutting screenshots first appeared online, the person said, “I was like, this is just Armie making really perverse jokes. And then it got conflated with his [seemingly] newfound interest in BDSM sex, which is his prerogative.” Sexual abuse allegations are especially charged in a post-#MeToo climate: “There are a lot nuances to the subject of sex and consent, and it’s just not a topic that people are really patient about these days,” the person said. “He’s a really down-to-earth guy. I think he’s just having a moment.”

“He did some stupid things,” admitted another person who has known Armie and his family for more than 20 years. But there is a difference between stupidity and criminal behavior, they continued. “You don’t send messages like that if you’re a famous movie star. You know your boundaries. Given his family history I’m sure there is some damage there, but he is basically a sweet man—who apparently likes kinky sex.”

After all of this Armie has boomeranged back to the Cayman luxury hotel he was so desperate to flee. “Well… my ex (for a very good reason) wife is refusing to come back to america with my children,” Hammer wrote on his private Instagram. “So I have to go back to Cayman… which sucks. Except there are a few silver linings.” Above the caption was a video that showed a woman, from behind, wearing black lace lingerie and sitting on all fours on his bed. “Like fucking Ms. Cayman again while I’m down there.” (Armie later issued an apology and clarification that the woman in his picture was not the actual Miss Cayman.) Another post read, “Divorce is so fun. Not as fun as drugs. But what is.”

According to Brettler, “Armie’s primary concern now is seeing his kids.”

“DON’T GO OUT AFTER DARK”

Armie may not be the first Hammer accused of darkness, but he could be the first to suffer public consequences. His last film—titled, unbelievably, Crisis—premiered in the quiet shadow of its star’s P.R. spiral in February. Another film, Death on the Nile, an Agatha Christie adaptation costarring Gal Gadot, is currently scheduled for a September release. The only statement Armie made came in January, when he told the public why he was leaving the Jennifer Lopez rom-com: “I’m not responding to these bullshit claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic.” Armie’s lawyer told Vanity Fair he would not be commenting for this story.

Those who know Armie professionally have had a hard time watching the Armie they knew seemingly implode in a fit of social media posts, bad behavior, and substance abuse in recent months. (Though how would Armie’s namesake, Armand, have fared in a social media world?) But neither will anyone speak on record to support him.

Several people in Armie’s camp imply that the timing of the allegations, given the divorce proceedings, is suspicious. But a source close to Elizabeth says that she has been “blindsided left, right, and center.” She was humiliated enough seeing Armie photographed with a string of women so shortly after filing for divorce, when their children had not even been aware of the split. “The internet is forever, and it kills her that one day her children will see how brazen their father has been, not only with his casual dating and drug use, but with these deeply disturbing allegations.”

A person once close to the family has expressed genuine concern for Elizabeth as she moves forward in her custody battle with the Hammers. “I want to tell her to be careful,” the person said. “I hope she can just get off that island soon.”

Elizabeth has told friends that while she is fearful herself, she is projecting strength for the kids and trying to find occasional humor in the darkness. She’s been joking to friends that the only thing that makes sense to her, looking back on her marriage since the allegations surfaced, is the Netflix movie starring Zac Efron as Ted Bundy—Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

People are worried about Casey, too. She has been speaking openly about her family’s alleged secrets in the wake of the public’s newfound interest in the Hammers. Recently, she received a text message from a woman who knows three generations of Hammer men.

“Don’t go out after dark,” the woman texted her. “If you do, go in a group. Park under a light and near a store entrance. Valet as much as you can. Be ‘aware’ and ‘beware.’ Always check to make sure you’re not being followed...Watch your surroundings for a stranger’s face that appears more than once.”

Right now Casey has about $100 in her savings account.

“If you would have told me in my 20s that I would end up financially challenged, single, and working at Home Depot, I would have bet you a million dollars that wouldn’t have happened.” The inheritance settlement lasted her 18 years, and she’s been getting by on her own since then, she said, eating Progresso soup and bologna sandwiches.

She joked—sort of—about her own plans. “I’m going to walk into [talent agency] WME,” Casey said, “and I’m going to tell them, ‘You got rid of the bad Hammer. Now how about you take the good one.’”

If her brother, Michael, had given her even one of the family paintings, she said, she’d be set for life. “I never was taught to save money or to think ahead. I never thought it would end. It’s okay, though. Because I broke the cycle, if that makes sense, and got away from the Hammer genetic trail.”

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Спустя два года после того, как несколько женщин обвинили Арми Хаммера в сексуальном и психологическом насилии, несогласованных БДСМ-практиках и пугающих фетишах, голливудский актер наконец прервал молчание. В первом за это время большом интервью он рассказал свою версию событий, перевернувших его жизнь и фактически похоронивших карьеру. В рамках цикла материалов о судьбах знаменитостей «Лента.ру» попыталась разобраться, как Хаммер мог скатиться на самое дно и как культура отмены в одночасье превратила его из восходящей звезды в главного изгоя Голливуда?

Падение голливудской звезды

На 2021 год Арми Хаммер возлагал большие надежды. И поводов для оптимизма у него действительно было много. В его рабочем графике уже значились сериал «Предложение» — о создании фильма «Крестный отец» и романтическая комедия «Моя пиратская свадьба», в которой он должен был сыграть вместе с Дженнифер Лопес. Также он подтвердил свое участие в бродвейской постановке The Minutes и в мини-сериале «Газлит», где его партнерами должны были стать Джулия Робертс и Шон Пенн. Да и в личной жизни у актера все было радужно. После десяти лет совместной жизни он якобы мирно развелся с женой и в последующие за расставанием месяцы то и дело появлялся на публике с очередной молодой подругой. К 1 января 2021 года Хаммер был в одном шаге от реализации профессиональных амбиций и с твердой уверенностью в счастливом будущем. Накануне Нового года в своем микроблоге в социальной сети Twitter он гордо заявил:

2021 год будет стоять передо мной на коленях и целовать мои ноги, потому что в этом году я — босс

Арми Хаммер

Всего девять дней спустя имя Арми действительно оказалось у всех на слуху из-за одного из самых громких скандалов, когда-либо потрясавших Голливуд. Причиной свержения «босса» с голливудского Олимпа стали попавшие в сеть скриншоты якобы личной переписки Хаммера с неизвестными женщинами. В текстовых и голосовых сообщениях актер подробно описывал свои темные фантазии на тему изнасилования сексуальной партнерши и нанесения ей телесных повреждений. Однако больше всего взбудоражило общественность признание Арми, что он «стопроцентный каннибал» и не отказался бы испить крови женщины или съесть ее.

«Я как-то вырезал сердце у животного и съел его, пока оно было еще теплым. Полностью сырое. Я бы съел твое сердце, если бы после этого не остался без тебя», — якобы писал Хаммер

Агент и пиарщики актера изо всех сил пытались замять разгорающийся скандал и справиться с потоком гневных комментариев в социальных сетях, однако ситуация продолжала ухудшаться. К слитым анонимом перепискам добавились откровения других женщин и рассказ Кортни Вусекович, которая недолго встречалась с Хаммером в 2020 году. В интервью Daily Mail она заявила, что актер всячески пытался вовлечь ее в отношения «господин и рабыня».

Кадр: фильм «Социальная сеть»

Из-за скандала восхождение Арми к вершинам богатства и славы быстро пошло на спад. Он наотрез отказался комментировать «бредовые обвинения», но решил покинуть каст «Моей пиратской свадьбы» под предлогом, что из-за «жестоких и ложных онлайн-нападок» не может надолго уехать от детей. В течение следующих нескольких недель актер был вынужден разорвать контракты на работу во всех проектах, значившихся в его съемочном графике. В феврале голливудское агентство WME отказалось сотрудничать с Хаммером, что было равнозначно краху карьеры.

В довершение всех неприятностей таблоиды опубликовали видео, как Хаммер пьет за рулем и употребляет белые кристаллы, что привело к распространению слухов о его тяжелой наркотической и алкогольной зависимости и окончательному краху его репутации.

Скелеты в шкафу семейства Хаммер

Стоит отметить, что выпавшие из шкафа Арми скелеты — не первые. Члены его семьи не раз оказывались в эпицентре политических, уголовных и секс-скандалов, но всегда умудрялись выйти сухими из воды. Во многом это происходило благодаря огромным деньгам и влиянию, которое имеет династия Хаммеров в США. Прапрадед Арми Юлиус был выходцем из Одессы. Эмигрировав в Соединенные Штаты в 1875 году, он стал одним из основателей Американской коммунистической партии и поставщиком заграничных медикаментов в СССР.

Политическая карьера Юлиуса внезапно прервалась: его приговорили к трем с половиной годам тюремного заключения за непредумышленное убийство. Врач по образованию, родоначальник династии Хаммеров сделал неудачный аборт жене бывшего дипломата из России Марии Оганесовой, из-за чего она через неделю скончалась.

После ареста Юлиуса семейный бизнес продолжил его сын Арманд. Предприимчивый «красный капиталист» стал первым американцем, получившим от Ленина право на ведение частного бизнеса между Советами и США.

Арманд Хаммер вывозил из СССР пушнину, икру, драгоценности, в 1930-х удачно распродал предметы искусства из реквизированных частных коллекций, в том числе сокровища семьи Романовых

Он выступал в качестве посредника между советским руководством и американскими бизнесменами и арт-дилерами, а также основал в США нефтяную компанию.

Арманд сколотил целое состояние, однако прославился не только как удачливый бизнесмен, но и как тиран по отношению к женам и любовницам. Он был трижды женат. Во время бракоразводного процесса вторая супруга Анжела Кэри Зевели обвинила его в абьюзе, злонамеренном «разрушении ее воли» и угрозах «выбить мозги металлической трубой».

Мой муж — мастер психологического боя

Анжела Кэри Зевеливторая жена Арманда Хаммера

Еще одна громкая история связана с любовницей Арманда Мартой Кауфман. Роман с ней бизнесмен закрутил, будучи женатым в третий раз. И когда супруга заподозрила его в измене, Арманд уволил пассию из своей компании, заставил сменить имя, перекрасить волосы в платиновый блонд и потребовал полного контроля над ее жизнью. В документальном фильме «Дом семьи Хаммер» свидетели утверждали, что Кауфман должна была всегда оставаться на связи и передвигаться только на машине с установленным устройством слежения. Все ее телефоны прослушивались. Кауфман в течение жизни не раз повторяла, что была у Хаммера в рабстве — в том числе сексуальном.

Еще более мрачное прошлое было у деда Арми — Джулиана. Он был вечным источником проблем для отца, а в 1955 году и вовсе убил человека. На праздновании своего 26-летия Джулиан пристрелил друга Брюса — то ли из ревности, то ли из-за нежелания выплачивать ему карточный долг. Хаммера арестовали, но обвинения в предумышленном убийстве были сняты.

$50 000

наличными и отличные семейные адвокаты смогли переквалифицировать действия Джулиана в разряд самообороны, если верить слухам

Джулиана Хаммера обвиняла в агрессивном поведении, издевательствах и сексуальном насилии его дочь Кейси. По ее словам, в их доме находился целый гарем несовершеннолетних девушек, которых он называл служанками, и был установлен двухметровый «секс-трон» с отверстием для головы в сиденье и железной клеткой под ним.

Женщины в семье Хаммеров всегда были одноразовыми

Кейси Хаммердочь Джулиана Хаммера

Не желая оставлять многомиллионный бизнес и капиталы проблемному сыну, Арманд практически полностью лишил Джулиана наследства и завещал все своему внуку Майклу, отцу Арми. Однако, по словам Кейси, ее брат унаследовал от родственников не только семейное дело, но и склонность к сексуальным извращениям. Оргии, наркотики, закрытые вечеринки и выставки раритетных автомобилей были неотъемлемой частью жизни Майкла и его главной страстью.

После женитьбы на воспитанной в строгих традициях католической церкви матери Арми, Дрю Энн, и последующего переезда на Каймановы острова Майкл ненадолго остепенился. Однако после развода с первой женой он вернулся в США — и к излюбленным БДСМ-практикам. По словам друзей Майкла, в те годы он с удовольствием использовал по назначению фамильный «секс-трон», который забрал из особняка отца после его смерти.

От БДСМ к каннибализму

Многочисленные скандалы, связанные с мужчинами семейства Хаммер, никак не влияли на карьеру Арми. Он решил стать актером еще в 17 лет и начал целенаправленно строить карьеру на «фабрике грез», несмотря на протесты родителей. В Голливуде за ним закрепилась репутация хорошего парня, героя боевиков и независимого кино. До 2021 года жизнь Хаммера казалась идеальной, и даже время от времени появлявшиеся в интервью неосторожные признания актера о сексуальных предпочтениях никого не настораживали и воспринимались как шутка.

Мне нравилось быть доминирующим любовником. Например, хватать за шею, за волосы и другие места. Но в браке аппетиты меняются. Честно признаться, я от этого не страдаю

Арми Хаммериз интервью журналу Playboy 2013 года

В 2021 году первой выступила с обвинениями в адрес Арми его бывшая любовница Эффи (Ефросинья) Ангелова. Женщина утверждала, что состояла с актером в отношениях с 2016 года и при этом была не единственной его любовницей. Именно она выложила в соцсети скриншоты переписки, обвинила Хаммера в каннибализме и в том, что он насиловал ее на протяжении четырех часов и несколько раз ударил лицом о стену. Затем к ее обвинениям присоединились другие женщины, подтвердившие сексуальные девиации Арми. Две предполагаемые жертвы — Кортни Вусекович и Джулия Моррисон — подробно рассказали свою версию произошедшего в документальном фильме.

Вусекович, как и Ангелова, познакомилась с Хаммером в 2019 году, когда тот еще был женат. Актер заверил новую пассию, что его брак обречен, постоянно звонил и писал ей, и в результате она потеряла голову. По слова Кортни, поведение Арми, его жестокость и желание полностью контролировать ее жизнь пугали, но она долгое время не могла разорвать эту связь и продолжала встречаться с ним.

В одном разговоре он обмолвился, что ему доводилось связывать секс-кукол, а теперь у него появилась мечта попробовать это со мной. И я позволила. Честно признаться, мне это все не понравилось. Веревки оставляли следы на теле и больно врезались. Это было ужасно. Я была полностью обездвижена. Мне приходилось только ждать, когда все закончится

Кортни Вусекович

После расставания с Хаммером Кортни, по ее словам, была вынуждена обратиться в реабилитационный центр, так как не могла сама справиться с последствиями травматичного опыта. Находясь на лечении, она узнала из новостей о новом увлечении актера — Пейдж Лоренце.

Лоренце также выступила с обвинениями против Хаммера. Она поведала журналистам, что актер был зациклен на садомазохистских практиках, повсюду возил с собой атрибуты БДСМ и повторял, что хочет сломать ей ребро, а затем приготовить из него барбекю и съесть.

Художница Джулия Моррисон предположила, что то, как Хаммер обращается с женщинами, — побочный продукт его воспитания. Она призналась, что никогда не встречалась с актером лично, но активно занималась с ним секстингом в сети. По ее словам, он называл ее своим маленьким питомцем и рабыней, которую будет «превозносить, кормить и насиловать».

Я хочу укусить тебя и оставить след, а затем превратить этот знак в татуировку. Заклеймить, пометить тебя, сделать татуировку, побрить тебе голову и оставить волосы себе, отрезать кусок твоей кожи и заставить приготовить его для меня

Арми Хаммер

Поддержала жертв и бывшая жена актера Элизабет Чемберс. Когда Хаммер находился в самом эпицентре скандала, она через инсайдеров передала журналистам, что шокирована тем, в кого превратился отец ее детей, назвала его монстром и заявила, что безоговорочно верит решившим вынести скандал в публичное поле женщинам.

Мрачные тени

Хаммер два года хранил молчание по поводу выдвигаемых против него обвинений, предоставив возможность адвокатам говорить от его имени. Юристы все опровергали, называли утверждения предполагаемых жертв чистой выдумкой, и добавляли, что любые взаимодействия Арми с женщинами «осуществлялись исключительно по обоюдному согласию».

$14-16

млн

потерял Хаммер из-за судебных издержек только в 2021 году. Его финансовое положение таково, что он «не просто разорен, а по уши в долгах»

Когда от Хаммера отвернулись голливудские киностудии, поклонники, многие друзья и бывшая жена, он поймал себя на мыслях о самоубийстве и даже предпринял попытку суицида, но вовремя остановился. Его психическое состояние стало настолько нестабильным, что он был вынужден отправиться в один из лечебных центров Флориды для реабилитации от наркотической и алкогольной зависимости.

Благодаря терапии Хаммер сумел обнаружить связь между травматичными событиями из детства и интересом к БДСМ. Он признался, что в 13-летнем возрасте стал жертвой сексуального насилия со стороны пастора церкви, в которую ходил с семьей. Арми рассказал о произошедшем матери, но та лишь ответила, что пастор — божий посланник и не мог делать ничего плохого. Эпизоды надругательства над ним продолжались на протяжении года. Правдивость этой истории подтвердила крестная мать актера, которой он рассказывал о произошедшем. Следствием травматичного опыта стало желание Хаммера полностью контролировать свою сексуальную партнершу и ее жизнь.

Я был бессилен в той ситуации, никто не мог меня защитить. Затем мои интересы сместились к тому, чтобы самому контролировать ситуацию в сексуальном плане. Потому что если я не контролирую ситуацию, во мне возникает чувство опасности и крайнего дискомфорта

Арми Хаммер

Признать ошибки

Хаммер не отрицал, что до встречи с бывшей женой и в конце их брака занимался агрессивным сексом с другими женщинами, но дал понять, что все было по обоюдному согласию. Он никогда никому ничего не навязывал, и то, что сейчас Эффи называет изнасилованием, было секс-игрой, сценарий которой она сама же и придумала вплоть до мельчайших деталей, говорил актер. Он подчеркнул, что прекрасно осведомлен о том, что согласие — важная часть БДСМ, потому никогда не делал ничего без одобрения партнерши. В такого рода отношениях именно сабмиссив обладает всей полнотой власти, так как всегда может сказать стоп-слово и прекратить игру.

Дополнительным доказательством своей невиновности Арми назвал тот факт, что спустя два года после скандальных заявлений ни одна из женщин не подала против него судебных исков. Департамент полиции Лос-Анджелеса тоже до сих пор не выдвинул против него официальных обвинений в сексуальных домогательствах.

В то же время Арми признал, что ему нравилось ощущение власти над молодыми женщинами. Он вел себя эгоистично и прекрасно осознавал, что Вусекович, Лоренце и другим женщинам было сложно сказать ему «нет» из-за его богатства, славы и внешней привлекательности. Пользуясь дисбалансом сил, актер был эмоционально жесток с ними «на миллион процентов», хотя они этого совершенно не заслуживали.

У меня был очень напряженный, доходящий до крайностей образ жизни. И я сгребал в охапку женщину и приводил ее в свою жизнь — в этот водоворот путешествий, секса, наркотиков и сильных эмоций. А стоило мне заскучать, я просто бросал ее и переходил к следующей, из-за чего женщины чувствовали себя брошенными или использованными

Арми Хаммер

При этом, несмотря на обвинения в изнасиловании, крах карьеры, финансовые трудности, Хаммер говорит, что не хотел бы отмотать пленку назад и переиграть все, что с ним произошло. Реабилитация помогла ему вернуться к нормальной жизни и избавиться от зависимостей. Да и бывшая жена, кажется, сменила гнев на милость и сообщила, что гордится его успехами. Актер заявил, что благодаря пережитому вновь смог почувствовать себя здоровым, счастливым, уравновешенным человеком, и заключил: «Герой должен умереть, чтобы возродиться вновь». Учитывая то, как низко пал Хаммер, если он все же сумеет вернуться, это станет одним из самых впечатляющих событий в истории шоу-бизнеса.

Armie Hammer: biography

Armie Hammer is an American actor who is known to the audience due to his roles in the movies The Social Network, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Mirror Mirror. Hammer is the representative of American "preppy," but at the same time, he isn't spoiled by money. He honors family traditions, and he feels proud of his Russian roots.

Childhood and youth

Armand Douglas Hammer was born on the 28th of August of 1986 in Los Angeles. His father Michael Armand Hammer is a financial tycoon; he is an owner of Knoedler Publishing publishing house and Armand Hammer Productions film company. It's surprising, but his mother Dru Ann came from the ordinary family and worked as an employee in the bank. Armand has a younger brother called Victor.

Armie Hammer has Russian roots what he repeatedly mentioned in the interviews. He is proud of his ancestors and background.

His great-grandfather Armand Hammer was a well-known businessman, he was the owner of Occidental Petroleum oil company. He had Jewish roots; he was born in the family of Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire. Even though he was living in the USA, he was successful in business in Russia as well. The great-grandfather found the first plant of the writing things in the USSR and began the construction of World Trade Center in Moscow.

In his assets, he has many awards, prizes, and orders. He was even nominated for the Nobel Prize. By the way, the boy received his name in honor of his legendary great-grandfather. His wife - Armie's great-grandmother is a Russian actress and singer Olga Vadina.

In such a way, the future actor was brought up in a rich and intelligent family. When the boy turned seven, all his family relocated to the Cayman Islands. Here the boy studied in Faulkner's Academy and regularly went to Christian school. They have lived here far from "civilization" for five years, and when the boy returned to Los Angeles, the boy told about his wish to become an actor.

Armie began to have this desire, not by chance. Once he saw the picture Home Alone and then all night long, he saw the dreams that he was on the place of Macaulay Culkin. He thought that he could cope with unlucky robbers not worse, than the leading character. In the morning he announced to his parents about his desire to become the actor. Though until this day he was planning to follow in the footsteps of his father and to become a businessman.

Already at school he together with friends organized some business – the children stole Playboy magazines from the adults and sold in the set with the hand lotion. Soon the director learned about it and then opened the personal locker of Armie where he found tens of lotion bottles. The boy answered that he just had very dry skin on his hands.

Movies

Armie’s first roles were episodes in the series Arrested Development, Desperate Housewives, Veronica Mars, and others.

In the youth series Gossip Girl the young actor has received the more remarkable role, he appeared in three episodes of the series. What about the first leading role, Armie received it in 2008 in the picture Billy: The Early Years. He performed the role of Baptist Billy Graham - a spiritual mentor of the U.S. presidents.

The actor became popular after the picture The Social Network directed by David Fincher. Armie was lucky to play in this movie two characters at the same time – twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. This movie was nominated for 8 Academic Awards and 6 Golden Globe Awards. As a result, this picture received 3 Academic Awards and 4 Golden Globe Awards.

The picture J. Edgar directed by Clint Eastwood became the actor's next movie. The actor worked together with Leonardo DiCaprio on the movie set.

The role of Prince in the movie Mirror, Mirror became one more bright role of the actor. Armie has turned into the real prince – blue-eyed, with a height of 196 cm. Lily Collins has performed the role of Snow White, and Julia Roberts played the angry Queen. It was a great experience for the actor.

For the next time, the actor appeared in the duet with Johnny Depp in the movie Lone Ranger. Hammer played the character of the officer of the law. His character wears a black mask which suspiciously looks similar to Zorro's mask. Even though the comedy western turned out to be funny and was even nominated for two Academic Awards, it received Golden Raspberry Awards as Worst Sequel, Remake or Rip-Off.

In 2015 the movie The Man from U.N.C.L.E directed by Guy Ritchie was released. Hammer received one of the leading roles – the KGB agent Illya Kuryakin. The actor of the "Superman" Henry Cavill became his partner on the movie set. After the appearance in this movie, the actor was showered with the offers of the roles.

In 2016 there came out four feature movies with the participation of the actor – The Birth of a Nation, Nocturnal Animals, Free Fire, Mine.

In 2017 Armie Hammer voiced-over the character in the animated series Cars 3 and got the major role in the movie Final Portrait. But the picture Call Me by my Name directed by Luca Guadagnino became the most remarkable project of 2017 for the actor.

Personal life

In 2008 the actor met the TV host and journalist Elizabeth Chambers. By the words of Armie, he fell in love at first sight. During two years he was courting Elizabeth. They got married on the 22nd of October of 2010. To prove his love Hammer had made a tattoo on his ring finger with the initials of his wife.

By the way, it's not the first tattoo of the actor. On his wrist, the man has a phrase in Cyrillic – Hammer. He has made to pay tribute to his Slavic background. Each man in their family has such a tattoo; they make it when they reach the age of majority. At the same time with this event, the man receives the watch to hide the tattoo. This is a tradition in Hammer’s life.

Elizabeth is four years older than Armie Hammer for four years. Though, this fact doesn't influence their relationship in any way. Armie does not keep it in a secret that he adores his wife. They look good together. As it is said, they are a perfect match.

On the 1st of December of 2014, Armie and Elizabeth became parents. Elizabeth gave birth to their daughter called Harper Grace Hammer. And in the summer of 2016, the couple attended the Toronto Film Festival where everybody could notice Elizabeth's rounded tummy. On the 15th of January of 2017, Elizabeth gave birth to their son Ford Douglas Armand Hammer. The spouses often publish the photos of their children on Instagram and don't hide their faces.

Moreover, the actor regularly writes posts on Twitter. By the way, in 2017 he disappeared from the social network for two months. It happened after the scandalous the publication of Buzz Feed under the title "Ten Long Years of Attempts to Make a Star of Armie Hammer."

The author of the article was wondering why Hammer continued to take part in the movies even though the pictures with his participation weren't very successful in the hire. Armie read the content of the article and even retweeted it, but soon he decided to delete his account. However, in January, of 2018 he appeared on Twitter again.

Аrmie Hammer at present

The picture of the young scientist Oliver in the movie Call Me by my Name has become the most scandalous role in Armie Hammer's movie career. The film was premiered in the world hire on the 22nd of January of 2017 at Sundance Film Festival. This movie was nominated for 4 Academic Awards.

The plot of the movie takes place in 1983. The seventeen-year-old Elio Perlman whose character was performed by Timothée Chalamet lives in Italy with his parents. The young scientist who is an assistant of Elio's mother comes to them to stay at their house. They began to have romantic relations, but they aren't destined to be together. The actor himself shared in the interview with British GQ that it was difficult for him to play the gay. Before the shootings, he was very nervous though he took efforts not to show it.

The movie critics have highly appreciated the movie and nominated Armie Hammer for the Golden Globe Awards in the category Best Supporting Actor.

In April of 2017 Armie together with his wife visited Moscow. He became the guest in the Evening Urgant show in which he told about the forthcoming premiere of the movie Free Fire and his son's birth. In production there are four with Hammer's participation – On the Basis of Sex, Freak Shift, Sorry to Bother You, Hotel Mumbai.

Filmography

• 2006 – Flicka
• 2009 – the series Gossip Girl
• 2010 – The Social Network
• 2011 – J. Edgar
• 2012 – Mirror Mirror
• 2013 – The Lone Ranger
• 2015 – The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• 2016 – The Birth of a Nation
• 2016 – Mine
• 2016 – Nocturnal Animals
• 2017 – Call Me by Your Name
• 2017 – Final Portrait

Photo