Hard as it may be to believe, it’s been nearly four years since actor Armie Hammer’s career arc was sidelined by leaked text messages and DMs that were both sexual in nature and addressed certain controversial proclivities as cannibalism. Sexual assault allegations followed, but those specific claims didn’t lead to legal action, and while the entire controversy has continued to take its toll, Hammer shifted back into acting mode in 2024, with a new western hitting the 2025 movie schedule.
Though he’s addressed the heightened cannibal rumors in the past, and opened up about childhood sexual abuse and a suicide attempt in his past, Hammer is now at a point where he can look back on that tumultuous period with more of a sense of humor. He appeared on the latest installment of Your Mom’s House, with the tongue-in-cheek episode title of “Just Lemme Eat Ya,” and the Lone Ranger co-star addressed how the messages were sparked by a legitimate kink that became something else entirely once they were taken out of context. When Segura brought up the topic of bondage, Hammer shared:
I like the idea. It's a control thing. 'You are so completely mine. Yeah, I can do whatever I want, and you love it, because you know your mine.' And, like, this possession kind of thing, it's just fun to talk about. By the way, especially if you're like, drunk or stoned or high at night and you're texting, and while you're saying it, you're like, chuckling to yourself, like, 'I'm gonna fucking cut your toe off and keep it in my pocket, so I got a piece of you everywhere I go' And then it gets read in the court of public opinion, and everyone goes, 'You're insane, yeah?' Well, yeah, a little bit. I mean, if I was normal, I would have a job that had like a 401K.
Tom Segura and his co-host (and wife) Christina Pazsitzky both agreed with Armie Hammer’s point that they’ve said things to each other throughout their relationship that could easily be misconstrued as more disturbing than what’s truly warranted, such as a past anecdote about Segura saying that he loved Pazsitzky so much he wanted to smash her head into a dresser. But she knows that’s not something he’d actually do.
To that end, Hammer says that the reaction he got for his messages to women would be on par with what anyone might get if their private sexual thoughts were shared with the world. In his words:
If anyone took anyone's bedroom conversations — specifically, like, if people were having a little bit of sexy time — and they took the shit that they said, even if it was completely vanilla, and you read that somewhere else out of context, everyone's gonna go, 'You guys are fucking disgusting.'
For the record, the Death on the Nile star once again laughed at the idea of people out there thinking he truly had the gumption and ability to eat other human beings.
Why Armie Hammer Says He 'Wanted To Get Caught'
The Call Me By Your Name actor spoke in the past about the idea that he was "grateful" for that situation exploding on the public sphere in the way that it forced him to step back and reassess his life and his actions. And when talking to Tom Segura, he expanded on that idea and talked about how he may have unconsciously taken things too far in his personal life specifically so it would all come out. Here's how he explained that line of thinking:
I think somewhere deep down, subconsciously, I wanted to get caught. I think that I so did not relate to the image of me that was out there in the public, of sort of like, 'Look at them, they're like this Ralph Lauren family. They've got the perfect life and the perfect house and the perfect kids,' and all this shit. I was like, 'I feel like a fucking alien walking around most of the time. I don't feel like a human, I feel like a creature. . . . The thinking of it was like, 'If I'm gonna be a creature, I'm gonna be the king of the creatures, and I'm just gonna lean into this.'
For the record, Armie Hammer married Elizabeth Chambers back in 2010, and their separation went public in 2020, months prior to the text message leaks. She shared her take on having to go through a life-changing break-up that was such a headline-maker at the time, all while the cannibal rumors and assault allegations were making waves. Whatever the reasons are for the actor's actions, here's hoping for the best.
The entire Your Mom's House interview can be seen below.
The next feature fans will see Armie Hammer in will presumably be Frontier Crucible, a western drama directed by Travis Mills that also co-stars William H. Macy and Thomas Jane. It’s already been filmed and is reportedly in post-production.
