Armie Hammer denied being a cannibal on a new podcast, but he admitted to participating in a hunting ritual that involved taking a bite out of an animal’s heart.
Speaking on the Tuesday, February 11, episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast,” Hammer, 38, responded to rumors that he’d once cut the heart out of an animal and eaten it while it was “still warm.” The actor said he did take a bite but denied having eaten the whole thing.
“You take a bite out of the heart, and you’ve got all your buddies around you, they’re goading you on,” Hammer said. “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.”
He went on to note that taking the bite was “not for the purpose of any cannibalism or any sexual gratification.”
Armie Hammer Says He Wanted to ‘Get Caught’ Amid Cannibalism Allegations
In the same interview, Hammer responded as host Louis Theroux asked him directly, “Are you a cannibal?”
Hammer replied, “You know what you have to do to actually be a cannibal? You have to actually eat human flesh. So, no.”
The Call Me by Your Name actor’s Hollywood career effectively ended in 2021 after he was accused of rape by an ex. At the time, various unverified direct messages detailing vivid sexual fantasies — including cannibalism — were attributed to him. He vehemently denied the rape allegations and said his sexual encounters were consensual. A Los Angeles police department investigation into the claims was closed in May 2023, and the actor was not charged.
Speaking to Theroux, Hammer claimed that nothing he ever did was against the law, even if some of his actions made people uncomfortable.
“I left a lot of people in that wake very angry at me for my behavior. … A—— behavior. There’s no way around that,” he said. “Does it make me a d—? Absolutely. Like, I have no problem admitting that. I was a d—. That’s not illegal.”
Last month, Hammer spoke about his fall from grace on the “Your Mom’s House” podcast and pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as one reason his scandal got so much attention.
Armie Hammer Is Trying to ‘Redeem Himself’ With New Podcast Venture
“COVID was going on, people were locked in their apartment, people were miserable,” he said. “There was all this s— going on. The world seemed like it was falling apart. And people were deeply unhappy with their own lives. And then this salacious story comes around where this actor wants to murder and eat people, and all of a sudden everyone’s like, ‘Oh, this is so much more fun to focus on than the fact I can’t leave my living room.’ Everyone was like, ‘Let’s dogpile on this story.’”
In the same interview, Hammer claimed he was having trouble managing his squeaky clean Hollywood image. When the allegations broke, he was married to Elizabeth Chambers, with whom he shares daughter Harper, 10, and son Ford, 8.
“I think somewhere deep down, subconsciously, I wanted to get caught. I so did not relate to the image of me that was out there in the public. Like, ‘Look at them, they’re like the Ralph Lauren family. They’ve got the perfect life, and the perfect house, and the perfect kids,’” Hammer explained. “I was like, ‘I feel like a f—ing alien.’ I was ‘liking’ rope bondage pictures on my Twitter. It was like I was dog-whistling to it, if you will, and wanting to get caught. People would be like, ‘I don’t think he knows his Twitter likes are public.’ I saw that and I was like, ‘I know.’”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
