Armie Hammer's movie career was derailed in 2021 amid an LAPD investigation that saw The Lone Ranger and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. star accused of a violent sexual assault.
While he was never officially charged (the investigation was dropped after 9 months), Hammer couldn't shake off the controversy and several women released screenshots suggesting he has cannibalistic and violent fetishes. Throw in reports about substance issues and infidelity, and the actor was regularly hitting the tabloids for all the wrong reasons.
With so many women sharing similar sexual abuse claims about the actor, he was dropped by his talent agency and essentially blacklisted in Hollywood.
As a result, we've seen pretty much nothing of Hammer since; there was even a time when he was a top pick among comic book fans to play characters like Batman and Superman. Now, he's broken his silence on the allegations which all but ended his acting career.
"People called me a cannibal, and everyone believed them. They’re like, 'Yep, that guy ate people,'" Hammer said with a laugh. "Like what? What are you talking about? Do you know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to eat people! How am I going to be a cannibal?! It was bizarre."
"Even in the discrepancies, in whatever it was that people said, whatever it was that happened, I’m now at a place in my life where I’m grateful for every single bit of it.
"I’m actually now at a place where I’m really grateful for it because where I was in my life before all of that stuff happened to me," he continued. "I didn’t feel good. I never felt satisfied, I never had enough. I never was in a place where I was happy with myself - where I had self-esteem."
Saying the accusations led to "an ego death, a career death," Hammer said he's joined a 12-step program and added, "It’s almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life. It killed me, it killed my ego, it killed all the people around me that I thought were my friends that weren’t - all of those people, in a flash, went away."
"But the buildings were still standing. I’m still here, I still have my health, and I’m really grateful for that."
Elsewhere in the conversation, Hammer said his career as an actor is going "nowhere" because he's no longer a "viable commodity [for the] Hollywood system." Despite that, he's now making his "own sandbox" by writing a script with a friend.
You can watch the full interview below.