Armie Hammer is speaking out about the controversies that have surrounded him in recent years, from his troubled relationships to the shocking allegations that led to his public downfall. In a candid interview on The Louis Theroux Podcast, the 38-year-old actor didn’t hold back, acknowledging his past mistakes while also pushing back against the idea that his actions were criminal.
“I’m very quick to admit that I was selfish, and inconsiderate, and an a–hole, and a cad, and I used people to make me feel better,” Armie confessed. He admitted to a pattern of behavior that involved love-bombing women, sweeping them into whirlwind romances, only to drop them and move on quickly.
“People were sort of like my bags of dope with skin on them,” he continued. “You make me feel amazing, so I’m going to throw everything into this, and we’re going to have this whirlwind romance, and I’m going to whisk you up, and we’re going to go on trips, and we’re going to do all this, and then I’m going to bring you home and I’m going to go, ‘Thanks so much, that was great,’ and then I’m going to move on.”
He acknowledged the emotional damage he left in his wake but made a point of clarifying that, while his behavior was hurtful, it wasn’t illegal. “Does it make me a dick? Absolutely. I have no problem admitting that I was a dick. That’s not illegal.”
During the interview, Hammer was asked whether he would work with someone who had been canceled, such as filmmaker Woody Allen.
“At this point, I don’t know that I’d buy into any of the cancel, ‘we need to this and that,’” he said. “If I say, ‘No, I would never work with Woody Allen,’ then all I’m doing is saying, ‘I believe in this system that cancels people.’”
One of the most bizarre and widely discussed aspects of Hammer’s scandal was the alleged cannibalism-related messages that surfaced online. Hammer, however, made it clear that he never actually engaged in such behavior.
“You know what you have to do to actually be a cannibal? You have to actually eat human flesh. So no,” he said.
He went on to explain that his messages were taken out of context and that they were never meant to be taken literally. “Sometimes when you’re involved with a person, and you’re dating, and you guys are having sex, and you are a bit of a provocateur, and you are exacerbated by alcohol or drugs or anything like that, it’s fun to ruffle feathers and it’s fun to push the envelope little by little… Did I ever have any intention of cutting anything off of anyone or eating anything off of anyone? No.”
Hammer also addressed the leaked messages, which many saw as disturbing.
“I’m not going to argue the messages,” he said. “The most important context to give these kinds of things is they are one side of a conversation. As you’ll notice, of all of the text messages that were released, the person who released them, their side was cut out of the entire conversation. It makes it look like I was just rambling to myself.”
He further emphasized that without the full exchange, the messages could have been taken completely out of context. “Any digitally altered evidence is immediately inadmissible because you have no context. That could have been a very funny conversation between two people who were joking and pushing each other and egging each other on in the way that sometimes you see comedians pushing the boundary further and further when they’re having a conversation.”
Despite everything that has happened, Hammer believes that his downfall was ultimately for the best.
“It killed off all of the ego. It killed off all of the bulls—,” he said. “It killed off all of the pretense. I spent three years and change really having to examine myself and really having to look at myself and really having to go, ‘Whoosh,’ to all of the external validation that I was getting. Not only did it go away, it turned into global hate.”
