On Thursday, Vanity Fair published an in-depth look into Armie Hammer’s downfall following a social media firestorm about what the actor calls “bulls– claims” about him.
One of the most damming revelations comes from unnamed sources that his ex-wife Elizabeth Chambers has been joking to friends that her former marriage is comparable to “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” in which Zac Efron plays serial killer Ted Bundy. A spokesperson for Chambers has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
In January, leaked messages purporting to detail the star’s sex life, including a supposed interested in cannibalism and rape fantasies, surfaced on an Instagram account under the name House of Effie. Hammer released a statement shortly after, when he dropped out of Lionsgate’s “Shotgun Wedding” amid the firestorm, saying, “I’m not responding to these bulls– claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic. Lionsgate is supporting me in this and I’m grateful to them for that.”
According to the Vanity Fair article, Gloria Allred is representing the person behind @houseofeffie account currently.
Several women have since said they have had similar exchanges with the actor. Hammer’s attorney had no additional comment, but previously issued a statement about the accusations that “all interactions between Mr. Hammer and his former partners were consensual. They were fully discussed, agreed upon in advance with his partners, and mutually participatory. The stories perpetuated on social media were designed to be salacious in an effort to harm Mr. Hammer, but that does not make them true.”
See below for seven other revelations from the Vanity Fair piece.
1) He’s Broke
Hammer claimed financial independence from his rich and powerful family, who have been involved with Russian communists and American oil tycoons, according to the article, and in 2017 he even confessed that he couldn’t pay out a bet he had made with filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. “It would literally bankrupt me, and I need to buy diapers tomorrow.”
Now, one of the women who claim they had a relationship with Hammer, Paige Lorenze, said she met Hammer in September and that she paid for everything because Hammer didn’t have any money and was only getting “by on loans from friends.”
2) Lorenze Quickly Got Uncomfortable
Lorenze, who has previously spoken out about her relationship with Hammer, said things with Hammer got intense very quickly, and she broke things off with the actor after “he started making rules for me of things I could and couldn’t do, who I could have over, who I couldn’t. He told me that I couldn’t have anyone else in my bed. And then I just started to feel really unsafe and really sick to my stomach about things. I was also emotionally dependent on him.”
She then said she ended the relationship over text. “You never know what you’re going to get with him–he’s kind of a scary person.”
She said that as soon as she saw the anonymous leaked DMs, her stomach “just dropped.” “Because he would say things to me…weird stuff…like, ‘I want to eat your ribs,’” she said. “The scariest part of it is that I did love him in a way,” Lorenze said. “I would’ve let him kind of do anything. He had a certain hold over me.”
3) A Friend Says Hammer’s ‘Dry Sense of Humor’ Is to Blame
A friend of Hammer and Chambers told Vanity Fair that his “dry sense of humor” and a lack of context around the text messages are to blame for the social media firestorm.
“I was like, this is just Armie making really perverse jokes. And then it got conflated with his [seemingly] newfound interest in BDSM sex, which is his prerogative,” the friend said. “There are a lot nuances to the subject of sex and consent, and it’s just not a topic that people are really patient about these days. He’s a really down-to-earth guy. I think he’s just having a moment.”
But, another person said that he should’ve known better given his movie stardom.
“You don’t send messages like that if you’re a famous movie star. You know your boundaries,” the source said. “Given his family history I’m sure there is some damage there, but he is basically a sweet man–who apparently likes kinky sex.”
4) The Final Straw in the Divorce
According to a friend close to Chambers, Hammer had been unfaithful shortly after their son’s birth in 2017, and the relationship was strained from then on, especially when she found evidence of him having an affair with a co-star. Then, he decided to flee the family from their quarantine in the Cayman Islands during a global pandemic.
But the final straw came when Hammer allegedly sent a raunchy text to his estranged spouse, which was not meant for her. And Chambers filed for divorce shortly after.
5) Hammer’s Interest in Japanese Bondage Art
According to the article, Hammer introduced Chambers to Shibari, a Japanese bondage art form where people are tied up in intricate patterns, and Hammer bought mannequins to use with elaborate knots.
Later, one of his other girlfriends named Courtney Vucekovich, who has also previously spoken out about her relationship with the actor, said that Hammer told her he never tied up a human before, “only mannequins. I remember thinking, like, ‘That’s got to be true because that’s the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.’ Who would lie about that? That’s weirder than saying, ‘I tied up 25 people.’”
6) Vucekovich’s “Regret”
Vucekovich, who says she started talking to Hammer on his flight from the Cayman Islands back to the United States, said there was one encounter she had with Hammer in Sedona that “left her with regret.”
She said Hammer was drinking heavily and “persuaded her to participate in a ‘bondage scenario that I was not comfortable with/ He sulked, ‘cold and angry,’” to convince her, and then, she said, “I eventually consented and really regretted doing so.”
7) Hammer’s Mother Thought The Devil Was Trying to “Take” Hammer
When Hammer took Lorenze to meet his mother in Texas, Lorenze said she could immediately tell Hammer had a complicated relationship with his mother, Dru. His mother allegedly told her that the devil was trying to “take” Armie, and she worried that he didn’t believe in God.
Dru also allegedly opened up to her “about how she was so worried about Armie and so grateful for me because she felt like I was a good influence on him. And that she just wanted him to accept God back into his life. And that he had just been fighting everything for a long time.”