Armie Hammer 'grateful' for cannibal rumours
Armie Hammer is "grateful" for the "hilarious" rumours about him being a cannibal.
The 'Call Me By Your Name' actor denied accusations of rape and physical abuse by a woman named Effie in 2021, who he had allegedly been in an on/off relationship with for four years and who shared graphic texts allegedly sent by her famous lover on Instagram, prompting other females to come forward and claimed he had made "weird" remarks about wanting to "eat" them.
Though Armie acknowledged the allegations "killed" his career, he is now able to reflect on the time with gratitude.
Speaking on the 'Painful Lessons' podcast, he said: “People called me a cannibal, and everyone believed them. They’re like, ‘Yep, that guy ate people.' Like what? What are you talking about? 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.
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“Even in the discrepancies, in 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."
The 37-year-old star explained he “never knew how to give myself love” or “self-validation” before the scandal because he “had this job where [he] was able to get it from so many people.”
He added: “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.”
Armie - who split from wife Elizabeth Chambers, the mother of his children Harper, nine, and seven-year-old Ford, in 2020 - admitted the accusations caused "an ego death, a career death" and he eventually joined a 12-step programme and is now in a better place.
He added: “It’s almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life.
"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.”
In the wake of the backlash, Armie fled to the Cayman Islands and admitted there were a number of times he considered taking his own life.
He said: “There were a lot of times when I thought, ‘I can’t take this any more.’ And I hit really low, dark points.
“I was standing on the shore and I just looked out at the ocean and thought, ‘Yep, this is it,’ and I just swam out really far … and was just laying there … [in] a half-a**** suicide attempt … [But I thought] I can’t do that to my kids.”
The 'Social Network' star admitted his acting career now is "nowhere" because he’s “not a viable commodity” for the “Hollywood system" but he is working on a screenplay with a friend.