Armie Hammer has opened up about his life after being shunned from the entertainment industry due to some wild accusations.
The 37-year-old was thrust into the spotlight after a woman known as "Effie" came forward and accused the star of rape and physically abusive behavior - which Hammer has repeatedly denied.
In one of the biggest scandals of 2021, screenshots of graphic texts allegedly sent by Hammer on an anonymous Instagram account seemingly saw him label himself a cannibal.
Following the serious claims, two other women also came forward with similar stories of coercion between the period of 2017 to 2020, with one of his ex-girlfriends, Paige Lorenze, describing him as a "scary person."
"You never know what you’re going to get with him – he’s kind of a scary person. He would say things to me... weird stuff... like, ‘I want to eat your ribs,'" Lorenze told Vanity Fair in an interview.
More recently, Brittany Schmitt, another one of Hammer's alleged past lovers also claimed that he had some sort of "cannibalism kink."
"You know, I think that the thing that was tricky about him was, he was very open about everything," Schmitt recalled during an episode of This Is The Worst Podcast. "Anytime I had a question about anything - about the cannibalism, about all the stuff in the media - he was very willing to talk about it, you know?"
Schmitt asked for more details on the cannibalism fetish to which Hammer responded with the concept of being "inside" each other.
"The way he explained it to is he said: 'It’s a cycle of completion.' So he’s like: 'I'm inside of you. I want you to be inside of me,'" Schmitt stated before going on to detail what that meant.
"So he does this biting thing, where it’s like he will push it to the limit with biting. He will go as hard as you let him go with biting," she explained.
While no legal action was pursued against him due to the "complex" nature of the relationships between Hammer and his intimate partners, he was dropped by his agency and shunned from the industry.
But now, the star has spoken out.
In a new interview on the Painful Lessons podcast, Hammer reflected on the cannibalism accusations surrounding him, referring to the situation as "hilarious."
"People called me a cannibal, and everyone believed them. They’re like, ‘Yep, that guy ate people,'" Hammer said, laughing. "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."
Despite the situation changing the span of his career forever, he said he was "grateful for every single bit of it."
“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,” Hammer continued before adding that he “never knew how to give myself love” or “self-validation” prior to the allegations because he “had this job where I was able to get it from so many people.”
Hammer went on to state that he's in a good spot in his life because he "didn't feel good" before the incident.
"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," he said.
Hammer said the accusations caused “an ego death, a career death,” and he ultimately joined a 12-step program.
“It’s almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life,” he said. “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," he added.
As for the future, the 37-year-old is going to try and make a name for himself behind the scenes, as he has recently got involved in script writing with a friend.
