Disgraced actor Armie Hammer has dramatically responded to the ‘cannibal’ texts that derailed his Hollywood career, asserting they were “digitally altered” and thus “immediately inadmissible”.
However, he did confess to having cut the heart out of a living animal and taken a bite. The Call Me By My Name star, 38, was at the peak of his fame when texts emerged in 2021 where he seemed to identify himself as a cannibal.
One message stated: “I am 100% a cannibal. F**k, that’s scary to admit. I’ve never admitted that before.” Another read: “I need your blood. I crave it.”
A further message stated: “I want to see everything… I want to see your brain, your blood, your organs, every part of you… I would definitely bite it … 100%… or try to f*** it. Not sure which… probably both.”
These texts were sent to Effie Angelova, with whom he was having an affair leading to the end of his nine-year marriage to Elizabeth Chambers, the mother of his two children. Angelova also accused Hammer of rape and physical abuse, allegations the actor denied, reports the Mirror.
In 2023, prosecutors confirmed he would not face charges over these accusations. However, the scandal led to him being dropped by his acting agency and losing several high-profile roles.
Now, in a new Louis Theroux podcast released today, the actor dismisses the damaging claims as he attempts to revive his career ahead of his first movie comeback in Frontier Crucible, which he recently filmed with William H. Macy.
In response to the notorious cannibalism texts, Hammer didn’t deny the conversation but insisted that the shocking exchange was merely “a very funny conversation between two people who were joking and pushing one another.
He explained: “I think the most important context to give these kinds of things is they are one side of a conversation. As you’ll notice, of all of the text messages that were released, the person who released them, their side was cut out of the entire conversation.
“It makes it look like I was just rambling to myself. I mean, if you look, there’s really no response in any of the excerpts. You know, any digitally altered evidence is immediately inadmissible because you have no context.”
He added: “You, like, that could have been a very funny conversation between two people who were joking and pushing each other and egging each other on. In the way that sometimes you see comedians pushing the boundary further and further when they’re having a conversation. I’m not going to argue the messages.”
When Theroux asked him to categorically deny he is a cannibal, he responded: “My point is this. Sometimes when you’re involved with a person and you’re dating and you guys are having sex and you are a bit of a provocateur and you are exacerbated by alcohol or drugs or anything like that. It’s fun to ruffle feathers and it’s fun to push the envelope little by little.”
“Did I ever have any intention of cutting anything off of anyone or eating anything off of anyone? No. There was never really anything that I wanted. Was it fun to joke about if I was stoned or drunk or like laughing as I was typing these messages? Sure.
“That’s where context comes in. You make jokes, I’m sure, with your friends that if I took your phone, and made them public, and removed your friend’s half of the jokes, you would probably be in hot water.”
“And that’s why, this is why I say to everybody who wants to have an opinion on what they’ve seen or what they’ve read about me is like, okay, you can say whatever you want. You can judge me as much as you want from any public platform that you want. Give me your phone for 45 minutes before you do it. And almost everyone goes, Ooh.”
However, Hammer confessed that one text message he sent was not a fantasy – when he told the woman: “I’ve cut the heart out of a living animal before and eaten it while still warm.”
He revealed to Theroux that it did happen while hunting with friends, explaining: “You don’t eat the whole heart, you don’t do that. You take a bite out of the heart, and you’ve got all your buddies around you, they’re goading you on, it’s sort of like an almost overly charged male rite of passage when you go hunting for your first time. Everyone that I know who went hunting for their first time had to do something similar.”
Hammer also refuted allegations of infidelity with multiple women behind his wife’s back, asserting: “Effie was the first time that I ever stepped out of my marriage. I never cheated before that”.
He further dismissed all accusations of rape and physical abuse as falsehoods, claiming that the woman who initiated them “is a person who’s not well, you know?” He added: “This is a person who everybody, without choosing to vet or choosing to sort of critically examine, said, yep, this all must be true. Armie must be a cannibal rapist.”
The actor, who identifies himself as single and “very much happy to not be in a relationship”, says he is starting to rebuild his career and credits the allegations for prompting him to scrutinise his life.
He said: “It killed off all of the ego. It killed off all of the bullshit. It killed off all of the pretence. And I spent three years really having to examine myself and really having to look at myself and really having to go ‘woosh’ to all of the external validation that I was getting.”
“I needed to figure out what I was about. And basically, I spent the last couple of years taking care of my father as he died. Taking my kids to and from school every single day. Spending time with myself, alone. Learning to love myself. Now, with a sense of distance and perspective from it, it’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”