Armie Hammer had a promising career ahead of him. In 2010, he attracted attention for his portrayal of the Winklevoss twins in David Fincher's "The Social Network" and in 2012, he won over young hearts as Prince Andrew Alcott in the fantasy Snow White retelling "Mirror Mirror." A few years later — following a string of forgettable roles and box-office bombs — he reclaimed his princely crown with Luca Guadagnino's acclaimed drama "Call Me By Your Name."
But all that fame came crashing down in 2021, when Hammer faced numerous allegations of rape, abuse, violence and even a lurid interest in cannibalism. An investigation led by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) ensued and subsequently, Hammer was dropped from multiple upcoming projects. For the time being, Hollywood's ex-Golden Boy is living a private life, working as a timeshare salesman in the Cayman Islands.
The troubling allegations are revisited in "House of Hammer," the latest true-crime installation from Discovery+. The three-part series spotlights the victims who came forward to tell their stories along with Casey Hammer — Hammer's estranged aunt — who exposes the generations of abusers within the prominent Hammer dynasty.
"I grew up with very abusive, multi-generational men in the Hammer family," Casey told Salon in a recent Zoom interview. "And I just felt such an admiration for these women about how brave they were and I wanted to help them somehow. 'House of Hammer' shines a light on victims and abuse and holding people accountable — especially people, power, money, influence and fame. That's not easy to go up against."
From a Hammer-crested "sex throne" to the actor's perverse sexual fantasies, here are eight gut-wrenching revelations from the series:
"I have a fantasy about having someone prove their love and devotion and tying them up in a public place at night and making their body free use and seeing if they will f**k strangers for me," read a DM that Julia Morrison received from Hammer.
The pair began chatting a week before the start of quarantine in 2020, after Hammer followed Morrison on Instagram and expressed interest in a photo series she had modeled for. The series, called "For Arabella," showcases the plights of breaking out of a toxic relationship via a collection of emotional and provocative photos. When asked which photo he liked the most, Hammer pointed out the one in which Morrison was being choked. It didn't take long for their conversation to become far more graphic.
"Once the sexual nature of the DMs started, it was all that he ever wanted to talk about," Morrison recounted in the documentary. "He says to me, 'Fine, let's be open and honest. I've wanted to tie you up since I saw those goddamn pictures and messaged you about it. Shibari is how it's spelled. It's the Japanese art of rope bondage."
She continued, "And then he was saying to me about how if I were to submit to him, at the level where he could call me and say one word and get me to come on demand, like Pavlovian dog-style. Kind of getting you into this submissive space where he's the dominant. These are messages that are being sent literally within seconds of each other. You know, very heavy, very frequent."
As the conversation progressed, Hammer's DMs grew more violent and disturbing. Another DM read, "You don't think or worry about anything except being a good little pet. My own personal little slave. In return you will be worshipped, fed and f**ked."
Similar DMs were also sent to Armie's ex-girlfriend Courtney Vucekovich. She recalled receiving a note from him that simply said, "I'm going to bite the f**k out of you."
Another woman, going by the pseudonym "Effie," who first spoke out against Hammer, posted screenshots of the DMs she received from the actor on an Instagram account called House of Effie. One such DM read, "I don't know, you were the most intense and extreme version of that I've ever had. Raping you on your floor with a knife against you. Everything else seemed boring."
The pattern that emerged was that Hammer would use the language of BDSM without fully understanding that BDSM requires consent and for all parties to feel safe. In contrast, the actor's partners allege that he consistently crossed the lines of consent, carrying out violent acts against their will.
"The ropes were around your neck, your wrists, your ankles, behind your back. I mean, I had bruises . . . I hated it. I understand that if this is your fantasy, more power to you but I didn't like it and it didn't feel safe," Vucekovich said tearfully.
"I met Armie Hammer on Facebook in 2016 when I was 20 years old. The relationship progressed rapidly and the emotions from both sides became really intense," Effie said in her opening. "He would often test my devotion to him by removing and crossing my boundaries as he became increasingly more violent. He abused me mentally, emotionally and sexually.
An old photo of Michael shows him sitting on the throne and holding the head of a blonde woman, who is sitting in the cage and smiling. Despite the photos and descriptions of the throne, Michael's lawyer later claimed the throne was merely a "gag gift."
Following her parent's divorce, Casey said she rarely saw her father and only visited occasionally. During one visit, she returned to her childhood home and witnessed a sex and drug-fueled house party hosted by her father.
"It was a lot of drinking . . . a lot of smoke-filled rooms, a lot of screaming, a lot of loud music, a lot of drugs," Casey recounted. "He always had 16- or 17-year-old girls around, not much older than I was, five or six years older, and he called them his 'housekeepers.' It was code for his girlfriends . . . It was almost like giant orgies."
Casey also recalled finding polaroid photos of an underage girl at the party performing sexual acts on a man as her father watched in the background.
"When my father and my brother surrounded themselves with young, impressionable women that would basically do anything that they asked . . . that was the mentality I saw," she explained. "Women were disposable in the Hammer family."
When asked how her family's mistreatment of women influenced her perception of herself, Casey told Salon that making sense of her own identity has been hard:
"I speak a lot about it in my book of how I work through a lot of that just to get healed," she said. "That I'm even sitting here right now, it's a testament that for whatever reason, I'm supposed to keep plugging along because you know, I'm here for a reason."
"And I think seeing "House of Hammer," I had a moment where you go, "OK, this is why I'm going to keep moving forward with this purpose and help empower women because I know how great it made me feel." It's like one of those things where everything you need is inside. And the minute you stop and take the moment to just love yourself for who you are, it's OK, it's good enough."
"House of Hammer" is available for streaming now on discovery+. Watch the trailer below, via YouTube:
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