Armie Hammer Speaks: Owns Up to Emotional Abuse, Says He Was Sexually Abused at 13

Armie Hammer, accused of sexual abuse and other improper behavior by numerous women in 2021, has kept a low profile ever since. Now, the actor has opened up in a wide-ranging interview with Air Mail, and he is discussing the abuse he says he inflicted on others, as well as past abuse he claims was inflicted upon himself.

Variety reports that in the Air Mail exclusive, Hammer, 36, denies committing crimes against women, but cops to having been emotionally abusive. Specifically, he tells Air Mail he was "one million percent" emotionally abusive toward accusers Paige Lorenze and Courtney Vucekovich.

Calling himself "an a**hole," rather than a criminal, Hammer says, “I would have these younger women in their mid-20s, and I’m in my 30s. 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.”

"I was selfish," he goes on, "I used people to make me feel better, and when I was done, moved on. I’m now a healthier, happier, more balanced person. I’m able to be there for my kids in a way I never was… 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.”

Saying he was suicidal at the time the allegations broke, Hammer describes being in the Caymans and walking into the sea and swimming out so far he hoped to drown, be eaten by sharks, or get hit by a boat. “Then I realized that my kids were still on shore," he says, "and that I couldn’t do that to my kids.”

Hammer and his estranged wife, Elizabeth Chambers, share two children.

As for rumors he has sexual fetishes including cannibalism and BDSM, Hammer admits to the latter, but ties it to sexual abuse he says he endured as a teenager. Saying his youth pastor molested him at 13, Hammer notes, “What that did for me was it introduced sexuality into my life in a way that it was completely out of my control. I was powerless in the situation. I had no agency in the situation. Sexuality was introduced to me in a scary way where I had no control. My interests then went to: I want to have control in the situation, sexually.”

Air Mail asserts it corroborated Hammer's story of being molested, reporting it confirmed he had confided in two relatives.

The interview is the first time Hammer has opened up since the scandal broke, but he has had some support. As "Extra" reported in 2022, Robert Downey Jr. helped Hammer through rehab, which Hammer confirms to Air Mail.

Vanity Fair reported last year that Downey paid for Armie’s six-month stay at the Guest House treatment center in Silver Springs, Florida. According to the center’s website, the facility “cater[s] in particular to clients who have high-stress or high-visibility lifestyles such as business executives, politicians and entertainment professionals.”

It was also reported last year that Hammer, once a top Hollywood star, was working as a timeshare salesman at a Cayman Islands resort.

While TMZ and Variety reported the news, his attorney told Vanity Fair, “I can’t confirm or deny the report because Armie hasn’t addressed it. I just think it’s sh*tty that, if he is selling timeshares, the media is shaming him for having a ‘normal job.’”

Hammer has not worked as an actor since shooting "Death on the Nile" in late 2019. That film was released in 2022.