Before the scandal: Armie Hammer in Death on the Nile. Photo / Supplied
Before the scandal: Armie Hammer in Death on the Nile. Photo / Supplied
"Armie [Hammer] didn't just wake up one day and become a monster," says the actor's aunt, Casey, the 61-year-old granddaughter of oil billionaire Armand Hammer. She features in a documentary, House of Hammer, released today which chronicles the rise and fall of her dysfunctional family. "It's all about learned behaviour." She closes her eyes and takes a breath.
In 2021, several women came forward to accuse the handsome Hollywood star, best known for The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name, of physical and emotional abuse. One victim accused him of rape, while others released abusive messages sent by the actor in which he suggested dominating, raping and cannibalising them.
"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--- strangers for me," reads a text apparently sent by Hammer to one of the alleged victims Julia Morrison. Another, to Texan businesswoman Courtney Vucekovich: "I am 100 per cent a cannibal. I want to eat you." Hammer, who until 2020 was married to the TV chef Elizabeth Chambers with whom he has two young children, has consistently denied all allegations of rape and sexual abuse and has stated his interactions with women were consensual.
Pre-pandemic, blue-eyed Hammer's star was on the rise. Following his breakout in cult arthouse film Call Me By Your Name opposite Timothee Chalamet, he was nominated for a slew of awards and appeared on the cover of GQ billed as a "leading man". The interviewer described him as a "Prince Charming" of "sheer decency" while Chalamet called him a "walking example". In 2020, he starred in Netflix's adaptation of Rebecca opposite Lily James, and appeared alongside a glittering cast in Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile.
He was also part of one of America's most powerful family dynasties. Casey Hammer lights up describing her grandfather's parties in his Californian mansion, where she rubbed shoulders with Prince Charles and Princess Diana. "All of Hollywood wanted to be on the guest list," she gushes. "There were movie stars and powerful people and presidents. I met a lot of royalty. Dancing next to them, you were just pinching yourself."
Hammer's great-grandfather Armand on his private jet. Photo / Getty Images
But the family name – which Armie has tattooed on his wrist – has done nothing to help 32-year-old Hammer come back from one of the most explosive and gruesome cancellations in Hollywood history. While other cancelled celebrities including Woody Allen, Ezra Miller, Johnny Depp and Louis CK have managed "comebacks" of sorts through heartfelt apologies and with dedicated fans determined to fight their corner, Hammer cuts a lonely figure. He has been dropped by his talent agency WME as well as from his last planned film, Billion Dollar Spy, and is now reported to be selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands.
Now a new documentary, House of Hammer, about the dynasty, seems set to extinguish any chance there may have been of anyone in showbiz working with Hammer again.
Alongside testimonials from three of Armie's alleged victims, the documentary attempts to contextualise Armie's behaviour within five generations of wealthy and entitled Hammer men, some of whom it is claimed felt they had the right to treat women as disposable toys.
Casey, who was approached by producers after she self-published her tell-all memoir in 2015, Surviving my Birthright, wanted the documentary to "shine a light on [the] multigenerational abuse that has run through my family" and look at the way it might appear to some that "rich people think they can get away with anything… People watch Succession and think that's a scriptwriter's fantasy, but that's my family times a thousand."
Casey Hammer in the new documentary on Discovery+. Photo / Discovery
According to Casey, the Hammer family brand was "all about being camera-ready" and putting a marketable gloss on deep dysfunction. "You could never go outside of that house without makeup," she says. But behind closed doors she and her brother Michael (Armie's dad) grew up in an atmosphere of chaotic violence. They regularly witnessed their father, Julian, waving guns around while high on drink and drugs. In her book she describes an early memory of seeing her mother (who left her father when she was 11) being beaten up by her father on Christmas Eve: "The blood came out of her mouth in a stream, splattering her bra and slip".
Casey traces the problems back to the family patriarch: her grandfather and Occidental Petroleum oil tycoon Armand. Born in 1898, Armand was the child of Russian immigrants and the emotionally detached billionaire would not see family members without an appointment. He had never been close to his only son Julian (Casey's father). The boy was the child of his first marriage to a Russian singer and Armand spent his later life trying to slough off his Soviet heritage.
The only way Julian could get his father's attention, claims Casey, was through increasingly reckless behaviour: from partying with a string of young, female "housekeepers" and in 1955 at the age of 26, killing a man at his Los Angeles home after a row said to have been sparked by a gambling debt. Julian was arrested, but the charges were later dismissed. In her memoir, Casey alleges Julian (who died in 1996) sexually abused her. She believes Julian learned from his father – who she also claims once offered his son US$1 million ($1.64m) for his girlfriend – to treat women as playthings.
Hammer opposite Lily James in Rebecca. Photo / Netflix
It was Casey's brother Michael, who became the heir to the Hammer fortune. He has also weathered his fair share of scandal. According to a 2021 article published in Vanity Fair, Michael – who divorced from his wife Dru in 2012 – boasted of owning a 7ft "sex throne" featuring "a chair with a hole in the seat, a cage underneath, and a hook" (which his lawyer dismissed as a joke present given to him by a friend). Casey has not spoken to him for 13 years.
This is the household Armie grew up in (they shuttled between Santa Monica and the Cayman Islands) and, although Armie apparently cut himself off from his family financially, once telling GQ it was his choice, to "strengthen himself", he is not emotionally estranged – he spent the 2020 lockdown quarantining with his father in the Cayman Islands.
Talking via video link from the US, I'm surprised by how calm, sharp and confident Casey seems considering the extreme childhood trauma described in her memoir. I had expected a more fragile interviewee. She laughs and holds up a "worry stone" she's been turning in her palm. "It took me 61 years to be able to sit in front of you and say I love myself and I'm okay. There's still days when I do all the self-sabotage and self-hatred because that's what I'm used to." In her book she admits that, like most of the Hammers, she's had her struggles with drug addiction. For many years she preferred to numb her pain with cocaine.
Hammer in Call Me By Your Name. Photo / Sony Pictures
Online trolls have said Casey – who is estranged from her family and claims she was given just $250,000 ($409,740) in her grandfather's 1990 will, while her brother walked away with a reported $180 million ($295m) – has only "come out of the woodwork" to cash in.
But she says that when the news about Armie losing Hollywood roles broke, "I got a lot of calls and the last thing I wanted to do was be a soundbite for Armie's implosion. He's gonna do that on his own. I'm not here to talk about cannibalism and what's in store for Armie's career. It's like: hello?! What's in store for the victims? Who's focusing on them? Who's telling their story?"
She adds: "A good example of why you need to stop the cycle of abuse is that it can hold victims hostages long into adulthood … You can't erase the pain and the shame and the blame and the PTSD. It's all inclusive. I don't care what level of abuse. Mental, physical, sexual … people focus a lot on the sexual abuse but the mental abuse is scary, it's all-consuming."
