Uncensored - Piers Morgan - 20240719_armie-hammer-uncensored
Aired: 2024-07-19
Duration: 01:21:35


=== The Cannibal Elephant in the Room (02:11) ===

[00:00:00]  Let's first of all address that elephant in the room.
[00:00:03]  Are you a cannibal?
[00:00:04]  You know what you have to do to be a cannibal?
[00:00:06]  But the reason they would believe it is because you said it.
[00:00:08]  I'm 100% a cannibal.
[00:00:10]  Have you ever eaten any human flesh?
[00:00:12]  Not a question I'd ever thought I'd have to answer, by the way.
[00:00:14]  How many women were there from that point?
[00:00:15]  500?
[00:00:16]  Sure.
[00:00:18]  This was a very intense, very sexually charged between two people.
[00:00:23]  Different people have different sexual fantasies.
[00:00:26]  But I don't think that's any different than when someone looks at a baby and goes, oh my God, look at those cute little fat legs.
[00:00:31]  I just want to eat you up.
[00:00:32]  She quoted you as saying, grabbed a knife, held it to your throat, raped you all.
[00:00:36]  Everything else seemed boring.
[00:00:38]  You crying and screaming, me standing over you.
[00:00:40]  I felt like a god.
[00:00:42]  Pretty devastating to read that.
[00:00:44]  Are they true?
[00:00:46]  I don't remember saying those things.
[00:00:48]  They could be true.
[00:00:52]  None of those people were hurt or upset because I pushed any sexual boundaries.
[00:00:58]  Are you sure about that?
[00:00:59]  Did you, Brent?
[00:01:00]  The tip of a small knife.
[00:01:02]  A knife?
[00:01:03]  Yeah.
[00:01:03]  There wasn't even blood.
[00:01:05]  I'm not easily shocked.
[00:01:06]  I'm a little bit shocked by that.
[00:01:10]  I thought I was untouchable.
[00:01:13]  And boy, was I wrong.
[00:01:17]  I couldn't be alone with my child at this time.
[00:01:20]  Did you ever feel like ending it all?
[00:01:22]  Yeah.
[00:01:24]  Army Hammer had it all.
[00:01:26]  Money, looks, charm, an ever-advancing career as a Hollywood leading man.
[00:01:31]  But in 2021, it all came crashing down.
[00:01:34]  A series of women accused him of being a sexually abusive manipulator.
[00:01:38]  Even, by his own words, a cannibal.
[00:01:40]  He said, I'm 100% a cannibal.
[00:01:42]  I'm freaking out.
[00:01:44]  It was all he wanted to ever talk about.
[00:01:47]  I get a note that says I'm going to bite the f ⁇ out of you.
[00:01:49]  And he was just like, acted mad.
[00:01:52]  His cancellation was immediate and total.
[00:01:56]  And Army Hammer has not faced any criminal charges despite a multi-year police investigation.
[00:02:01]  Now, three years after his world collapsed, he's ready to face the world and go uncensored.
[00:02:09]  He joins me now in the studio.

=== Marriage Crashes Down in 2021 (16:17) ===

[00:02:11]  Well, Army, it's good to meet you.
[00:02:14]  Obviously, I followed your career.
[00:02:16]  I mean, the thing I remember you most vividly for, because I was in America working at the time, was social network and this massive hit movie.
[00:02:24]  And you played both the Winklevoss twins who were involved in the battle with Martin Zuckerberg.
[00:02:30]  It was a brilliant part.
[00:02:31]  You played it superbly.
[00:02:32]  You got lauded for it.
[00:02:33]  You won awards for it.
[00:02:36]  And from, you know, from that to working with Leo DiCaprio, with Julia Roberts, people were talking about you as the next George Clooney, the next great Hollywood leading man, maybe the next James Bond.
[00:02:47]  And it was legitimate praise.
[00:02:49]  You know, you're a superb actor at the top of your game and it was all going the right way.
[00:02:53]  I want to transport you, if you can, back to your mindset then.
[00:02:58]  What did all that acclaim and attention do to you?
[00:03:05]  Well, thank you, first of all, and thanks for having me.
[00:03:07]  It's good to talk to you as well.
[00:03:09]  It was a wild time.
[00:03:11]  I think that there was opportunities and successes that I wasn't necessarily prepared for and I didn't know how to handle or deal with.
[00:03:22]  So on the surface, while everything might have looked just like pure glitz and glamour, behind the scenes, it was honestly kind of like nerve-wracking and terrifying, a lot of it.
[00:03:35]  And it's a lot of pressure and pressure that I didn't really know how to deal with.
[00:03:39]  And a lot of it I didn't deal with very well.
[00:03:41]  You dealt with it in a pretty time-honored fashion for Hollywood.
[00:03:45]  A lot of drink, a lot of drugs, a lot of women.
[00:03:48]  Did you realize as you were going down that road that it's a pretty perilous path with a lot of bodies littered at the end of it?
[00:03:57]  No.
[00:03:58]  No.
[00:03:58]  I think at the time, that was the last thing from my mind.
[00:04:03]  And by the way, if any of those thoughts would have popped into my head, I would have just assumed it was my own neuroses.
[00:04:07]  And the answer to that would be another drink or more drugs or, you know, seeking comfort in another person, which I had become incredibly adept at.
[00:04:15]  And, you know, I think I never had those moments or those thoughts until everything came crashing down.
[00:04:26]  At the height of your partying, for want of an all-encompassing phrase, how hard were you partying?
[00:04:32]  I mean, took me through a big night out with Army Hammer.
[00:04:36]  I mean, you know, I definitely don't want to sound like I'm glamorizing.
[00:04:41]  No, no, no, no.
[00:04:42]  But like, I was really good at it.
[00:04:46]  All my friends called me the water buffalo because whatever they would drink, I would drink all of that and more.
[00:04:51]  Whatever drugs they were doing, I would take all of that and more.
[00:04:53]  And when they were done or tapped out, I'd move on to the next group of people and go, all right, well, what are we getting into, guys?
[00:04:59]  Like, it just.
[00:05:00]  What would you drink?
[00:05:01]  Oh, I mean, you know, it would be a seven, eight martini dinner and then, you know, keep going from there.
[00:05:09]  With what?
[00:05:10]  What do you mean?
[00:05:11]  With what other drinks?
[00:05:13]  Oh, whatever you had.
[00:05:15]  The answer was yes.
[00:05:16]  Literally anything.
[00:05:17]  Literally anything.
[00:05:17]  And the answer was always yes.
[00:05:19]  And what else?
[00:05:20]  And what drugs did you take?
[00:05:21]  I mean, what did you have?
[00:05:24]  I wasn't...
[00:05:25]  I wasn't.
[00:05:26]  Cocaine, presumably, the Hollywood drug of choice?
[00:05:28]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:28]  Oh, sure.
[00:05:28]  There was cocaine involved.
[00:05:29]  There was other stimulants.
[00:05:31]  Ecstasy?
[00:05:32]  Sure, sure.
[00:05:33]  Ecstasy.
[00:05:34]  Did you ever get into injecting anything?
[00:05:35]  No, no.
[00:05:37]  Are you relieved you never took that leap?
[00:05:39]  Because that's the one that often kills people.
[00:05:40]  Yeah, it just, that was never a draw for me.
[00:05:43]  I never, I never, fortunately, I never got to the point where taking drugs more recreationally wasn't enough.
[00:05:50]  I think I was acted upon by an outside force.
[00:05:54]  Were you addicted to any one of those things or were you addicted to partying?
[00:05:59]  I would say I was addicted to escapism.
[00:06:02]  That I was addicted to anything that would get me out of myself.
[00:06:06]  I felt such a deep sense of discomfort in my own body.
[00:06:09]  Why?
[00:06:09]  I mean, look, I mean, look, I'm looking at a guy who should not be feeling uncomfortable about his body.
[00:06:14]  Yeah.
[00:06:15]  You're a very handsome guy.
[00:06:17]  You're very charming.
[00:06:18]  I've seen interviews with you before it all blew up.
[00:06:21]  I'm looking at you now and thinking, why would you feel discomforted by who you are, by your body?
[00:06:28]  Maybe there is something to the idea that no one would assume it or people wouldn't accept you to feel that way that lend itself to you feeling even more that way.
[00:06:37]  You know, oh, well, you have everything in the world.
[00:06:40]  You should be fine, so we're not worried about you.
[00:06:42]  Like, pick yourself up by your own bootstraps kind of thing.
[00:06:45]  But everybody needs help.
[00:06:47]  I don't think.
[00:06:48]  But what were you escaping from?
[00:06:50]  I had, you know, for probably a myriad of reasons, I had the inability to make myself feel okay unless there was something else doing it for me.
[00:07:05]  I didn't know how to, I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm on the couch in therapy here, but I didn't know how to love myself.
[00:07:12]  I didn't know how to accept myself.
[00:07:13]  I didn't know how to be okay in my own skin.
[00:07:16]  These were never anything that I was taught.
[00:07:18]  And I don't think any of us really are.
[00:07:20]  That's why therapy is such a huge industry.
[00:07:22]  There'll be some people who will say, oh, come off it, Army.
[00:07:25]  You were living the high life of a Hollywood star, a classic storyline, right?
[00:07:30]  Of the good-looking, smart-talking, charming guy who just wants to party all the time.
[00:07:35]  And that you can look back because things crashed and burned and say, actually, now I look back on it, I think I was running away, escaping.
[00:07:43]  I was feeling this.
[00:07:44]  Were you really feeling that at the time?
[00:07:46]  Or do you think it's an explanation that you can now look back on with more clarity?
[00:07:52]  I think like all things, it's not black and white.
[00:07:55]  I'm sure there's a Venn diagram of both of those things, and the answer is probably found somewhere in the middle.
[00:08:01]  At the time, did it just feel like I was having a good time?
[00:08:04]  Yeah, some of the time.
[00:08:05]  Yeah.
[00:08:06]  Other times, did it feel like I was so anxious and uncomfortable that I needed something?
[00:08:11]  Yeah.
[00:08:11]  I think both are true.
[00:08:13]  It's not necessarily a binary thing.
[00:08:15]  A lot of people in your position at that age, they love fame and also hate fame.
[00:08:21]  Sure.
[00:08:22]  That it is actually, in its way, a very insidious drug.
[00:08:24]  Yes.
[00:08:25]  And I would say from many famous people I've interviewed at stages of their careers, it's one of the more destructive drugs, actually.
[00:08:31]  Absolutely.
[00:08:31]  Would you agree?
[00:08:32]  Yeah.
[00:08:33]  Because there's aspects of fame that are, to be perfectly honest, delightful.
[00:08:38]  What are the best things of being famous?
[00:08:40]  You can get a table at a restaurant when they're full.
[00:08:43]  You don't have to wait in line for things.
[00:08:45]  People give you free stuff, clothes, travel.
[00:08:49]  People want to hang out with you.
[00:08:50]  You become a popular kid.
[00:08:52]  People want to sleep with you.
[00:08:53]  People want to sleep with you.
[00:08:54]  And people will sleep with you.
[00:08:55]  And people will sleep with you just because.
[00:08:59]  And, you know, even if they don't necessarily want to.
[00:09:01]  In that whole period.
[00:09:03]  Yeah.
[00:09:03]  How many women did you sleep with?
[00:09:06]  You know, I was married for a long portion of that.
[00:09:10]  And I was faithful for a long time in my marriage.
[00:09:13]  And I think that really saved me from going too far off the deep end.
[00:09:18]  You know, for the first seven years of my marriage, which, you know, included, you know, a year of engagement and all that stuff, I was monogamous.
[00:09:26]  I was faithful.
[00:09:27]  I didn't cheat on my wife.
[00:09:29]  What made you finally cheat?
[00:09:36]  I think that I got to a point where I want to answer this really carefully.
[00:09:48]  I think what happens in long-term relationships are the two people will grow constantly.
[00:09:55]  And if the people start to grow apart at first, it's almost, it's minuscule.
[00:10:01]  It's unrecognizable.
[00:10:02]  And it's like a tanker ship going on the open sea.
[00:10:05]  If they're off by one degree for the first mile, you probably don't notice.
[00:10:09]  Five miles, you're a little bit offshore.
[00:10:11]  But you go 500 miles or 1,000 miles, you lose sight of each other and you're in a fog bank.
[00:10:17]  And all of a sudden, when you're lost and you've lost your partner because you're not checking in with each other, which is a two-way street, you can't find that person again.
[00:10:26]  And I think that's what finally happened in my marriage.
[00:10:29]  I think you have two people who grow, which everyone will do, but they weren't growing necessarily together.
[00:10:34]  And from that first moment that you took the decision to be unfaithful, again, I'll ask the question not because I want to be preerium.
[00:10:41]  I'm just curious about how bad this problem got for you.
[00:10:45]  How many women were there from that point?
[00:10:47]  Probably more than the average person would be exposed to.
[00:10:51]  Give me a ballpark.
[00:10:52]  I would say, you know, I haven't done the math.
[00:10:57]  50, 100, 200, 500?
[00:10:59]  Sure.
[00:11:01]  Maybe not 500.
[00:11:02]  That's quite a bit.
[00:11:03]  Many hundreds.
[00:11:04]  I wouldn't say many hundreds.
[00:11:06]  No.
[00:11:07]  You know, I would say enough.
[00:11:11]  Yeah.
[00:11:12]  I mean, that's a lot.
[00:11:14]  Yeah.
[00:11:15]  What do you feel about that now?
[00:11:17]  Just on that point?
[00:11:18]  Never mind the allegations which will come to you.
[00:11:20]  But what do you feel about how you were behaving?
[00:11:23]  Sure, if I look at it as it pertains to me, I look at a guy who was really hurting and needed something and didn't have it within himself to give himself what he needed.
[00:11:33]  So he was looking for that love or acceptance from other people.
[00:11:38]  And that's one way to look at it.
[00:11:40]  If I look at it in relation to the other people, I look at a bunch of people who were used like a drug to make someone feel better.
[00:11:50]  It wasn't even about those other people, Which kind of makes you a CAD, if you will.
[00:11:58]  Yeah.
[00:11:59]  Were you very arrogant at the time, would you say?
[00:12:02]  No, I don't think I ever was arrogant because I think I lacked the sort of over-inflated sense of ego or self-confidence.
[00:12:12]  I think there was a bit of an imposter syndrome at play as well.
[00:12:16]  So it precluded me from ever being like, I'm the greatest and you're lucky to be with me.
[00:12:21]  I don't think that was a part of it.
[00:12:23]  Did it bring you any validation?
[00:12:25]  Did it bring you any of the love that you were craving?
[00:12:28]  In the short term, it felt like it did, you know, but it wasn't real, you know, any more so than eating candy that's really bad for you makes you feel full, but then later makes you feel sick and you have cavities and you have to fix that.
[00:12:42]  I mean, it was a good year before the allegations first emerged that you and your wife announced you were going to get divorced.
[00:12:51]  Did she know about this?
[00:12:52]  Were you honest at that time about any of the infidelity or were there other reasons at the time that were the cause of the breakup?
[00:13:00]  I mean, infidelity was a key factor in our...
[00:13:04]  So she knew you'd been unfaithful.
[00:13:07]  Yes, I told her that I was unfaithful.
[00:13:09]  What made you be honest, Indian?
[00:13:12]  I got to a point where I realized I was becoming someone that I didn't recognize and didn't want to be.
[00:13:24]  And then I came clean to my wife at the time and told her what was going on.
[00:13:32]  Do you tell her the scale of it?
[00:13:34]  At this point, it had only been one person.
[00:13:36]  Right.
[00:13:37]  And it was the person who then ended up accusing me of rape.
[00:13:42]  That is the person who I had the first and only affair at that time on my wife.
[00:13:47]  This is Effie Angelova.
[00:13:48]  Yeah.
[00:13:49]  Yeah.
[00:13:49]  So she was the first person who I stepped outside of my marriage for.
[00:13:54]  And how did your wife react when you told her?
[00:13:56]  Appropriately.
[00:13:58]  Yeah.
[00:13:59]  A lot of anger, a lot of betrayal, a lot of hurt, a lot of pain, which I caused.
[00:14:05]  You know, I mean, that's on me.
[00:14:08]  And was that the catalyst for actually breaking up?
[00:14:12]  Yeah.
[00:14:13]  Yeah.
[00:14:13]  And we tried working on our marriage for a while.
[00:14:17]  After that, we spent a considerable amount of time in couples therapy and trying to work through our issues.
[00:14:24]  And, you know, as we continued to try to work through them, it just became clear that the damage had been done.
[00:14:31]  I had done the damage.
[00:14:32]  Even as you're telling me this, it looks to me like you're feeling quite emotional about that moment.
[00:14:39]  It was a dark time.
[00:14:40]  It was a dark, painful time.
[00:14:42]  Yeah.
[00:14:43]  It was, and it's also something that I have to accept is on me.
[00:14:51]  Like that's, I had an affair on my wife.
[00:14:55]  Obviously, I'm not the first person in the history of Hollywood to do that, but I did it.
[00:15:01]  And it's less than becoming behavior that I have to own and take accountability for.
[00:15:06]  And I have to also own the pain that I caused.
[00:15:11]  How do you get on with your wife now?
[00:15:12]  I would say we're very good co-parents.
[00:15:14]  We've worked through a lot of stuff together.
[00:15:17]  You know, we are able to put our children first and foremost.
[00:15:22]  And, you know, I would say that in a big way, bygones are bygones.
[00:15:26]  And it was a messy, murky time.
[00:15:29]  And I think nobody puts their best foot forward in those times.
[00:15:36]  If you had your time again, would you have not succumbed to temptation?
[00:15:43]  You know, the succumbing to temptation thing is interesting, right?
[00:15:48]  Because part of it is maybe I wanted out of a relationship that I wanted out of.
[00:15:55]  I had a therapist at one point during that call having an affair, The Coward's Way Out.
[00:16:00]  It's like you wanted to end this relationship.
[00:16:02]  You wanted to blow things up.
[00:16:03]  And do you think that's the truth?
[00:16:04]  I think, like we talked about before, I don't think it's necessarily binary, but I think that that did play a part in it in terms of the shades of gray of it all.
[00:16:14]  About a year later, January the 12th, 2021, before this woman, and she was anonymous at the time, it turned out to be Effie Angelova, before she went on Instagram and made all these lurid allegations about you that day.
[00:16:30]  Do you remember that day?
[00:16:31]  Before?
[00:16:33]  What were you doing?
[00:16:34]  I was down in the Cayman Islands.
[00:16:38]  I was there.
[00:16:41]  I had gone down to the Cayman Islands to be with my kids.
[00:16:45]  My now ex was down there.
[00:16:47]  My dad was living down there.
[00:16:49]  And so we went down there at the beginning of the pandemic.
[00:16:52]  Life was great because you had a lot of big roles.
[00:16:55]  Yeah.
[00:16:56]  Some you'd signed up to, some you were looking to sign on to.
[00:16:59]  One of them was actually the leading role in The Offer, which was the Robert Evans story.
[00:17:04]  You would have played Al Ruddy.
[00:17:05]  I loved that series.
[00:17:06]  It was a Paramount Pass series.
[00:17:08]  It would have been a great role for you, I think.
[00:17:12]  Life probably couldn't have been professionally going any better for you right then.
[00:17:16]  It was going to be my biggest year as an actor in terms of the amount of projects, the caliber of projects.
[00:17:23]  I thought I was untouchable.
[00:17:26]  I thought that, you know, this is the biggest year I've had.
[00:17:31]  I'm now, I'm good.
[00:17:32]  I'm going to be okay.
[00:17:35]  And boy, was I wrong.
[00:17:37]  How did you find out about the Instagram post?
[00:17:42]  Whew.
[00:17:45]  There had been threats from Effie that had come before.
[00:17:56]  And this is going back even farther.
[00:17:58]  There were threats that she would reach out and tell me that she wanted to kill herself.
[00:18:08]  How long has your affair been?
[00:18:10]  The actual affair lasted 10 months and then it ended.
[00:18:15]  But then, you know, there was sort of a lingering involvement, even though we never saw each other again.
[00:18:21]  There was communication that went for another couple years.
[00:18:26]  And in the end, did you break it off?

=== Rape Fantasies and Crossed Lines (05:34) ===

[00:18:29]  Do you think that was the catalyst for what then followed?
[00:18:33]  It's hard for me to say what her motivation and why she did what she did, but I don't think that that helped.
[00:18:43]  Had you lived in fear that she might go public?
[00:18:47]  I remember when we were having our affair back in, I want to say 2017 or whenever it was, there was a time where she threatened to tell my wife.
[00:18:59]  And she said, you know, I just can't live with the guilt of this anymore.
[00:19:04]  You know, this is so terrible what we're doing.
[00:19:06]  Even though she knew I was married when she reached out to me first, we had talked about my wife.
[00:19:13]  We had talked about the affair.
[00:19:16]  But there was a time where she said, I'm just going to have to tell your wife what we're doing.
[00:19:21]  And that was also one of the big motivators for me coming clean in this situation because I just, it just caused such an intense anxiety for me.
[00:19:30]  So you get to this day, January the 12th.
[00:19:34]  Do you recall exactly how you found out?
[00:19:36]  I got a call.
[00:19:37]  Who found it?
[00:19:38]  Because prior to that day, she had accused me of other things on social media.
[00:19:43]  That was the day where she accused me of rape.
[00:19:47]  Right.
[00:19:47]  And that was the big word.
[00:19:49]  That was the record needle spot.
[00:19:52]  I mean, what she said was you'd had a four-year affair, she said, with you, during which she says that you'd said a graphic and violent text about cannibalism, about rape fantasies, your desire to drink her blood.
[00:20:04]  These messages began to leak out all over the internet across two days.
[00:20:08]  Some of them, and I'll read just three of them.
[00:20:11]  You just live to obey me and be my slave.
[00:20:14]  You said to her, I will own you.
[00:20:15]  It's my soul, my brain, my spirit, my body.
[00:20:18]  Would you come and be my property till you die?
[00:20:20]  If I wanted to cut off one of your toes and keep it with me in my pocket, so I always had a piece of you in my possession.
[00:20:26]  I'm 100% a cannibal.
[00:20:28]  I want to eat you.
[00:20:28]  That's scary to admit.
[00:20:29]  I've never admitted that before.
[00:20:31]  It was that stuff, which obviously blew off around America and around the world.
[00:20:38]  Army Hammer, I'm a cannibal, in your own words.
[00:20:41]  Right.
[00:20:43]  Let's, first of all, address that elephant in the room.
[00:20:46]  Are you a cannibal?
[00:20:47]  No.
[00:20:47]  You know what you have to do to be a cannibal?
[00:20:49]  You have to have actually eaten someone's life.
[00:20:51]  Have you ever eaten any human flesh?
[00:20:53]  No.
[00:20:54]  Not a question I thought I'd ever ask them.
[00:20:56]  Not a question I'd ever thought I'd have to answer, by the way, but no, never.
[00:21:00]  What do you feel that a large swathe of the public just think Army Hammer is a cannibal?
[00:21:07]  If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
[00:21:10]  But the reason they would believe it is because you said it.
[00:21:12]  Sure.
[00:21:13]  I'm 100% a cannibal.
[00:21:14]  And I think a lot of these things, these text messages, it's so it's this.
[00:21:24]  This was a very intense affair, very sexually charged between two people with very similar proclivities and kinks.
[00:21:37]  And any of those conversations that we had inside of that relationship, when you take them outside of that context and put them into broad daylight, it doesn't look so good.
[00:21:48]  It's, you know.
[00:21:49]  And we've never seen what she was saying.
[00:21:52]  Correct.
[00:21:53]  I think.
[00:21:54]  For a very good reason.
[00:21:55]  Right.
[00:21:55]  I'm going to come to one of the other accusers.
[00:21:57]  I have seen some of the two and throw there, which puts a very different light, actually, on her claims.
[00:22:03]  But in relation to Effie Angelova, I guess, look, there were rape fantasies.
[00:22:07]  Is your position that all of this was just role play?
[00:22:11]  That it was, it may be offensive to people to hear about this and to read about it, but it's kind of BDSM kinky sex roleplay.
[00:22:19]  It's not actually meant to be taken seriously as you wanting to rape her or to be a cannibal.
[00:22:26]  Is that your argument about the way all this?
[00:22:29]  It's not only my argument.
[00:22:31]  That's the reality of the situation.
[00:22:33]  You know, different people have different sexual fantasies.
[00:22:38]  And there's a very broad spectrum of sexuality.
[00:22:41]  And people are allowed to engage with their own sexuality, however it fits them and what they do.
[00:22:47]  And if you find a partner who is amenable to these things or even excited about them, in my case, a lot of this I was introduced to by Effie.
[00:22:57]  But it was her idea.
[00:22:59]  Yeah, quite a bit of it, yeah.
[00:23:00]  She had more experience in this arena than I did.
[00:23:03]  Who first raised the concept of cannibalism as a role play?
[00:23:09]  I think that was just sort of like born out of a desire to sort of like, I want you so completely and I want you so totally that it's almost like I want to eat you.
[00:23:20]  But I don't think that's any different than when someone looks at a baby and goes, oh my God, look at those cute little fat legs.
[00:23:26]  I just want to eat you up.
[00:23:27]  Like it's, you know, there's a part of the brain that controls cuteness aggression.
[00:23:30]  We're not going to have a headline, Army Hammer, I want to eat babies.
[00:23:33]  Right.
[00:23:33]  Preferably not.
[00:23:34]  Preferably not.
[00:23:35]  But, you know.
[00:23:36]  But it was all, from your point of view, this was all fantasy talk, albeit you were indulging in.
[00:23:43]  It was all fun fantasy.
[00:23:46]  And it was, and some of it sent while I was sitting in a room by myself, you know, inebriated or whatever, thinking like, oh, this, oh, I'll say this.
[00:23:54]  This will be fun to say.
[00:23:55]  And you were both drinking and taking drugs throughout this period?
[00:23:59]  I mean, I don't want to speak to her, but I certainly was.

=== Graphic Messages and Cuteness Aggression (02:34) ===

[00:24:03]  The reason I ask is, is it possible that she believes you crossed a line, legitimately believes that?
[00:24:11]  That you lost the kind of boundaries because of all the drugs and drink that you were taking?
[00:24:19]  And that you could both be right, that in your eyes, it was all consensual fantasy role play.
[00:24:24]  And she was a very enthusiastic co-conspirator, if you like in it.
[00:24:31]  But that actually, there were times when, because you may have been out of it or whatever, the boundaries were crossed.
[00:24:38]  Do you accept that's even a possibility?
[00:24:40]  I believe that that's a possibility for her now.
[00:24:43]  I think that there is a legitimate world in which she has convinced herself of these things.
[00:24:48]  And I also know of after these sexual encounters that we had over those 10 months, I know that I received extremely graphic text messages from her, echoing the same sentiments that we talked about before and taking them even further.
[00:25:06]  Do you think if people saw the full context of all these messages, a very different light would be shed on them?
[00:25:11]  It would immediately clear everything up.
[00:25:15]  Yes.
[00:25:16]  Why don't you just leave them?
[00:25:17]  Well, because I was having these messages on Facebook Messenger at the time, and I was a married man, so I had to cover my tracks.
[00:25:26]  So when messages would come in, I would respond and I would delete everything so that nothing would be sitting on my phone.
[00:25:33]  Then when I was under investigation for two and a half years by the LAPD, we subpoenaed Facebook multiple times for those messages because of the exculpatory nature of the psychology.
[00:25:43]  Did you ever get them?
[00:25:45]  I did not personally get them because no charges were brought against me.
[00:25:49]  I know that a sizable, I know that a sizable piece of all of those messages were sent to the LAPD, and I believe that's why everything was dropped.
[00:26:00]  But I don't get access to those because there was no charges.
[00:26:04]  I'm going to come back to Elie Angelo when there was a more sinister development in that part of it.
[00:26:10]  But on January 14th, this is two days later, Courtney Vucekovich, who was an app founder who dated you in 2020, or said she did from June to October 2020, told the New York Post page six that you subjected her to emotional abuse, sexually coerced her, and made her feel unsafe.
[00:26:28]  And she repeated some of this in the documentary, House of Hammer About you.
[00:26:32]  She puts on this creepy clayless.

=== Power Imbalance and Emotional Abuse (11:00) ===

[00:26:37]  And...
[00:26:42]  She's like...
[00:26:48]  It's like the ropes were around your neck, your wrists, your ankles, behind your back.
[00:26:54]  It's like...
[00:26:57]  It was...
[00:26:57]  I mean, I had bruises.
[00:26:59]  I hated it.
[00:27:00]  First, have you ever watched that documentary?
[00:27:03]  I watched part of the first episode.
[00:27:05]  Have you seen that clip before?
[00:27:08]  I don't remember that clip.
[00:27:09]  What's your response to what she was saying?
[00:27:17]  I mean, I think, first and foremost, I understand why that's a compelling clip.
[00:27:21]  You have a woman expressing unsafety and fear and all of those things.
[00:27:28]  I understand why that is a powerful clip.
[00:27:34]  I disagree with the nature of our relationship and how she described it.
[00:27:43]  I will say this.
[00:27:45]  There are people that I left who were hurt and who were upset.
[00:27:54]  None of those people were hurt or upset because I pushed any sexual boundaries that they weren't interested in exploring or trying.
[00:28:03]  Are you sure about that?
[00:28:05]  Well, let me ask you a different way around.
[00:28:07]  Can you be sure about that?
[00:28:09]  I mean, it can be that women...
[00:28:11]  We know this, right?
[00:28:12]  I mean, some women can go along with things because they're in your thrall and they want to keep you happy, but it may be at the same time they're not really enjoying it at all.
[00:28:20]  I mean, do you think of that that I can...
[00:28:24]  If you were having, for instance, if you're not...
[00:28:25]  I accept that that's...
[00:28:26]  If you were having this relationship with Effie, for example, that was extreme in its nature in terms of the language you use and things you were doing.
[00:28:33]  Is it possible that when you tried to replicate some of that with somebody else, they might go along with it, but they might also feel pretty uncomfortable.
[00:28:41]  Do you think that's a possibility?
[00:28:43]  I do.
[00:28:43]  I do.
[00:28:44]  And I understand now the nature of the power dynamics of these relationships, where because of, you know, my position or my career or my notoriety or fame or whatever you want to say, that people might be inclined to go along with something that isn't necessarily their bag of tea.
[00:29:03]  I also know that in my sexual relationships with people, I was very cognizant and very aware about presenting.
[00:29:13]  These are my desires.
[00:29:16]  These are my kinks, if you will.
[00:29:18]  Do any of these sound good to you?
[00:29:20]  And then they would say, oh, I like this and, oh, we can try this.
[00:29:24]  I've never tried that.
[00:29:25]  I have questions, but I'm not saying no.
[00:29:27]  And I don't like this or I don't like this.
[00:29:29]  And then you say, okay, great.
[00:29:30]  Well, let's move slowly through this.
[00:29:32]  If this is anything you want to try, we can try them.
[00:29:35]  And we will make sure we do it safely and with communication and with healthy boundaries.
[00:29:39]  If it's nothing that you want to try, then great.
[00:29:42]  We won't do any of that.
[00:29:43]  How would a woman you had that conversation with, how would she express concern once you'd started?
[00:29:49]  I would make sure that it was very clear that at any point, whatever was going on could be stopped.
[00:29:55]  How?
[00:29:56]  We had safe words, which is a very important part of BDSM.
[00:29:59]  So what were they?
[00:30:01]  Orange was pause, meaning I feel a little overwhelmed, but I don't necessarily want to stop.
[00:30:07]  I just need a second.
[00:30:09]  And then red is, I need this to stop immediately.
[00:30:11]  For those who don't know what BDSM is, what is it?
[00:30:14]  Bondage, dominance, sadomasochism.
[00:30:17]  It's the idea of sort of heightened sexual scenarios.
[00:30:22]  When you were younger, did you ever think you'd end up so sort of addicted to that kind of sexual behavior?
[00:30:28]  I never thought I'd be on your show talking about it.
[00:30:30]  Right.
[00:30:30]  That's for sure.
[00:30:31]  Which is not easy.
[00:30:32]  I mean, I'd say.
[00:30:33]  You know, I do applaud you for facing the music about it.
[00:30:37]  It's not easy for someone in your position, who's lost everything, to come on and have to talk about this stuff.
[00:30:42]  Sure.
[00:30:42]  You know, it's not something most men would enjoy talking about.
[00:30:45]  It's a bit exposing.
[00:30:47]  Yeah, it's a bit scary.
[00:30:51]  How do you feel having to talk about it?
[00:30:54]  Honestly, I don't love it for the sake of my kids.
[00:31:02]  I hate the idea that there's any way their father's sexuality or whatever, however you want to say it, could be weaponized against them by bullies or mean kids in school.
[00:31:16]  But at the same time, I have to come at it from a place of self-acceptance and self-love and understand that some people love cilantro and some people hate it and neither are wrong.
[00:31:29]  But nothing that you did in your estimation was non-consensual.
[00:31:33]  Correct.
[00:31:34]  A third woman came forward a week after this, January 25th, Paige Lorenzi, who's a 24-year-old who claimed that you'd had a relationship for four months in 2020.
[00:31:44]  She corroborated some of the other stories.
[00:31:47]  She told page six again that Hammer, you allegedly branded her pelvis with the letter A, bruised her, sexually coerced her, took graphic photographs of her without her consent.
[00:31:57]  Again, what is your response to what she claimed about you?
[00:32:03]  I disagree.
[00:32:04]  I disagree.
[00:32:06]  I think that she is entitled to her opinion, and I...
[00:32:09]  Did you brand her?
[00:32:11]  I wouldn't say brand, no, but, you know.
[00:32:14]  What did you do in relation to that allegation?
[00:32:18]  There was a scenario that we talked about beforehand that we had discussed where, you know, I would basically take a little tiny point and just kind of trace the letter A. What do you mean a point?
[00:32:33]  What do you mean?
[00:32:33]  Just like the tip of a small knife.
[00:32:36]  A knife?
[00:32:37]  Yeah.
[00:32:37]  Yeah.
[00:32:38]  And you literally cut A.
[00:32:41]  I mean, there wasn't even blood in the situation.
[00:32:44]  It was more like a scrape, just to sort of like enjoy the...
[00:32:49]  It's along the lines of couples getting their own initials tattooed on each other.
[00:32:55]  But, you know, it's a bit different to a tattoo, though, isn't it?
[00:32:58]  With a knife.
[00:32:58]  Well, it's less permanent.
[00:33:00]  I guarantee you it was such a small thing that...
[00:33:02]  You say sort of matter of factly.
[00:33:04]  I mean, I'm not easily shocked.
[00:33:06]  I'm a little bit shocked by that.
[00:33:07]  I mean, it's a strange thing to do to somebody, isn't it?
[00:33:09]  To use a knife to brand them with your, presumably your initial for your name.
[00:33:13]  Yes, I think to some it probably sounds really strange.
[00:33:16]  To some it probably sounds like a very romantic.
[00:33:18]  I don't even remember Christian Gray in 50 Shades doing that.
[00:33:22]  Sure.
[00:33:22]  I mean, but, you know, if we look at Christian Gray, there's a lot of gray in that situation that if you turned everything black and white, we're looking at a very different movie then.
[00:33:33]  And, you know, I think...
[00:33:35]  Do you see parallels in what you were like with him?
[00:33:39]  You talked about a power imbalance.
[00:33:41]  He clearly utilizes that in that movie franchise.
[00:33:45]  I guess.
[00:33:46]  See, we look at that now.
[00:33:48]  You would say looking at the totality that none of it, certainly in his eyes, was non-consensual.
[00:33:54]  Sure.
[00:33:55]  I think when the movie came out, everyone loved it.
[00:33:58]  Women loved it.
[00:33:59]  When the books came out, women were first in line to buy it and people celebrated them.
[00:34:04]  I think now if we look at it through a prism of what we see now in culture, there's a whole host of issues we could draw with those movies.
[00:34:16]  You know, were they wrong, the fictional characters, were they wrong to be engaging in what they were doing at the time when we looked at it and loved it?
[00:34:23]  No.
[00:34:24]  What does it say that so many women love 50 Shades?
[00:34:27]  Does it say that a lot of women secretly harbor the same kind of thoughts that you've been condemned for actually doing?
[00:34:37]  I mean, if the book sales represent that, I wouldn't be surprised.
[00:34:40]  I think that there is a broad spectrum of sexuality.
[00:34:45]  And I think that for a long time, huge chunks of that spectrum were considered amoral, even illegal, if you look at homosexuality.
[00:34:56]  But, you know.
[00:34:57]  Where was the line for you?
[00:34:58]  Was there a line?
[00:34:59]  I mean, if you hadn't been exposed in the way that you were, would you have carried on down this path and how worse could it have got?
[00:35:09]  I don't think that the path I was on would have ever ended in.
[00:35:17]  I would say this.
[00:35:19]  There was nothing to be gained for me in having a sexual experience that my partner didn't appreciate or enjoy.
[00:35:27]  Because that was also a huge sense of validation for me.
[00:35:32]  Making this person that I'm with feel good, making this person that I'm with, I mean, I don't know if I can say this, climax.
[00:35:41]  Like these were things that made me feel good and made me feel powerful, which I desperately needed because I didn't know how to give them to myself.
[00:35:49]  I mean, your team have shown me a lot of the messages, for example, from Courtney, which if they are, I've not been able to independently verify.
[00:35:59]  I'm going to make that crystal clear to the viewers, but on the assumption that they're true, they would certainly cast a very different light on the consensuality aspect of this.
[00:36:09]  I mean, she certainly is clearly keen to keep doing this in these exchanges with you, even whilst professing to have thought differently at the time.
[00:36:21]  Yes.
[00:36:22]  Do you think in all these cases, if people could have seen, again, I think I've asked you this before, but in terms of the total allegations, if everyone could see all of the exchanges, do you think you'd be sitting here cancelled in the way that you are?
[00:36:35]  No.
[00:36:37]  Not at all.
[00:36:38]  So do you feel that it's been unfair the way that you've been treated for that reason?
[00:36:45]  A buddy of mine always says the thing that makes life fair is that it is unfair for everyone.
[00:36:53]  So for me to sit here and say it's not fair, sure, there are elements of this that don't feel fair to me.
[00:37:01]  But, and I've said this, and I'm not being trite, I'm not being glib about this.
[00:37:07]  I'm incredibly grateful for everything that happened.
[00:37:11]  I now am able to be the father that my kids deserve.
[00:37:17]  I'm able to give myself the love and validation that I was looking for from others.
[00:37:21]  I'm able to be a good example to my kids.
[00:37:24]  I'm able to also be a good example to my kids about sometimes we mess up, sometimes we fall on our face.
[00:37:31]  Would you even be here for your kids, and I mean alive, if this hadn't all come out when it did?

=== Psycho-Legal Evaluation and Custody (10:43) ===

[00:37:38]  What was the spiraling nature of your general drugs, booze, women, the kind of extreme sex stuff you would do?
[00:37:46]  Do you think that would have potentially led to you dying?
[00:37:50]  Yeah.
[00:37:52]  Really?
[00:37:54]  I think that that's how these things go.
[00:37:59]  This much is enough.
[00:38:00]  Then it's not.
[00:38:01]  Then this much is enough.
[00:38:03]  Then it's not.
[00:38:03]  Then this much is enough.
[00:38:05]  You're always chasing the high.
[00:38:07]  Yeah.
[00:38:08]  And it gets harder and harder to get it.
[00:38:10]  It's physiology.
[00:38:11]  It's dopamine.
[00:38:12]  It's, you know, getting those hits in your brain.
[00:38:16]  And I know that the path that I was on was only going to lead to one place, and that's death.
[00:38:26]  And in a way, esoterically, it did.
[00:38:29]  It led to a career death.
[00:38:31]  It led to an ego death.
[00:38:34]  It led to all of these different kinds of deaths.
[00:38:37]  But, you know.
[00:38:38]  But not actual death.
[00:38:39]  Thank God, no.
[00:38:41]  Things got a lot more serious several months later in 2021 when Effie Angelova, who'd had that lengthy affair with you, went public with accusations that you had raped her.
[00:38:54]  That initiated an LAPD, Los Angeles Police Department investigation.
[00:38:58]  Gloria Allred, the famed feminist attorney, took up her case and she was seen giving a pre-recorded statement making allegations about you.
[00:39:07]  We've got a clip of this.
[00:39:10]  On April 24th, 2017, Army Hammer violently raped me for over four hours in Los Angeles, during which he repeatedly slapped my head against a wall, bruising my face.
[00:39:28]  He also committed other acts of violence against me to which I did not consent.
[00:39:35]  Again, what do you feel watching that now?
[00:39:44]  It's not easy to watch because it represents one of the most difficult times of my life that I've ever been through.
[00:39:58]  And it's not easy to watch because it also feels emblematic of how angry and hurt I made people.
[00:40:09]  Was she telling the truth, do you think?
[00:40:11]  No.
[00:40:13]  She wasn't.
[00:40:15]  About any of that?
[00:40:16]  There were sexual encounters that we had that were, I would say, more extreme in nature.
[00:40:25]  But the encounter that she's talking about was something that we discussed and we planned.
[00:40:33]  She planned.
[00:40:34]  She said to me, I will be at this Starbucks at this time.
[00:40:38]  I want you to follow me home.
[00:40:40]  Then I want you to break into my house and I want this to feel like a real scenario.
[00:40:46]  I want this to feel real.
[00:40:47]  And we negotiated back.
[00:40:48]  And the scenario was what?
[00:40:50]  It was what would be called in that sort of world consensual non-consent.
[00:40:55]  It's a rape.
[00:40:57]  Consensual.
[00:40:58]  I mean, a rape role.
[00:41:00]  Rape implies that there is no consent.
[00:41:03]  But she wanted to simulate experience of it.
[00:41:06]  It would be a simulated...
[00:41:07]  But with her knowledge, in fact, is you know.
[00:41:09]  Not only her knowledge, her planning.
[00:41:11]  You know, she said, meet me at this Starbucks and follow me home, then come in the door and do this.
[00:41:15]  So, you know, this, I had never engaged in anything like this before, so we tried it, and I got to her house, and the door was locked, and I had to shoot her a message and be like, your door is locked.
[00:41:25]  I need you to come unlock the door.
[00:41:27]  And she was like, oh, shit, sorry, be right there.
[00:41:29]  So it was even awkward and clumsy, but it was something that we tried that we never did again, but it was something she wanted to try.
[00:41:37]  And I wanted to be an accommodating partner.
[00:41:39]  There were screenshots published by Airmail magazine in which Effie appeared to have told an Instagram follower that she'd had consensual sex, her words, with you, allegedly writing, he is not dangerous.
[00:41:50]  Yes.
[00:41:51]  He didn't rape anyone.
[00:41:52]  She also told another follower, allegedly, she was not saying that you had raped her.
[00:41:57]  Airmail reported those conversations took place before she made her initial allegations public.
[00:42:03]  Yes.
[00:42:03]  When you saw that report, what did you feel about that?
[00:42:08]  I wasn't surprised.
[00:42:10]  I knew that she wasn't raped.
[00:42:14]  I knew that she didn't consider it rape.
[00:42:18]  I knew that we had a completely and entirely consensual sexual relationship from start to finish.
[00:42:25]  So to see her out there saying publicly that I did not rape her, that I never raped her, that it was all consensual, and then to see an international press release where she's crying and saying that I raped her, it wasn't easy.
[00:42:40]  What was fascinating to me, because I know Gloria Alwed very well, is that she dropped representing her because she could not get her to sign a sworn affidavit to the effect of what her claimants were saying about you, that it was non-consensual and rape and so on.
[00:42:56]  I mean, that on the face of it is quite telling, that someone like Gloria decided this is not for me, this case, because she couldn't get her client to do this under oath.
[00:43:06]  Yes.
[00:43:07]  Did you think that was significant?
[00:43:09]  Yes.
[00:43:11]  Under penalty of perjury, if she signed this affidavit and it was found to be untrue, she would be in legal jeopardy.
[00:43:20]  Does any part of you think that this was part of any plan that she had all along?
[00:43:27]  Were you set up or did it all go on too long for it to be a setup like that?
[00:43:31]  Oh, you mean initially why she approached me?
[00:43:33]  I just wonder.
[00:43:34]  I mean, you were a Hollywood star.
[00:43:36]  You know, she's come up to you.
[00:43:38]  That's how it all started.
[00:43:39]  Do you think you were set up or do you think it was legitimately a genuine relationship with two like-minded souls?
[00:43:45]  But then when it soured and it sort of ended, that's when she changed her view of what had happened.
[00:43:52]  I think it's more that.
[00:43:53]  I don't think it was a premeditated, I'm going to take this guy down before I ever meet him.
[00:44:00]  I don't think she was that calculated.
[00:44:04]  I think it started organically, became very intense, and then ended.
[00:44:09]  And I think those feelings of loss or anger metastasized.
[00:44:18]  And I left someone with very little recourse except to do this.
[00:44:25]  The repercussions from her making the rape allegations were unbelievably severe and almost instantaneous.
[00:44:35]  I want to talk first of all about your wife, Elizabeth, at the time.
[00:44:38]  Obviously, you'd already commenced divorce proceedings, but when she learned about all the text messages and the I'm a cannibal stuff and so on, did she find out at the same time as everybody else?
[00:44:51]  Or had you told her that?
[00:44:54]  She was aware of my relationship with Effie before.
[00:44:58]  But the details, the lurid details.
[00:45:05]  I know, I don't know how much, but I know that when I made it clear to my wife at the time that I was having an affair and that I was wanting to call off the affair, I know that Effie sent a sizable portion of our messages back and forth to Elizabeth.
[00:45:24]  Really?
[00:45:26]  Including the cannibalism.
[00:45:28]  I don't know what.
[00:45:29]  I don't know what specifically.
[00:45:34]  She gave an interview, Elizabeth, to Elle.
[00:45:37]  She said, I support Army through his journey.
[00:45:39]  I always will.
[00:45:41]  Adding, do I want my son to become this?
[00:45:42]  Will I want my daughter to stay in a relationship like this?
[00:45:46]  What did you think when she said that?
[00:45:51]  I don't know when that interview was given.
[00:45:57]  But quite recently, I think.
[00:45:58]  Yeah, I think that I am proud of the place that Elizabeth and I have gotten to as co-parents, where, yeah, a lot of unfortunate and painful things happened.
[00:46:13]  Most of them my fault in the relationship.
[00:46:15]  She made you undergo psycho-legal evaluation involving the custody of your kids.
[00:46:20]  Yes.
[00:46:21]  That must have been an incredibly difficult thing for you to go through.
[00:46:25]  I mean, you're the father of these children.
[00:46:27]  There's no suggestion you'd ever been anything but an excellent father.
[00:46:30]  To have to go through a psycho-legal evaluation to determine if you're fit to be their father with potential consequences, very serious consequences for you and your relationship with them if it had gone the wrong way.
[00:46:43]  That's a horrible experience.
[00:46:48]  I see a mother doing what she felt she needed to to protect her kids.
[00:46:56]  I wasn't necessarily worried about the evaluation because I, in your words, I had never done anything to hurt my kids other than have, you know, an affair and pick a very dangerous person to do it with.
[00:47:14]  Your wife was clearly very angry with you, made a number of allegations about you, but the report concluded you were not a danger to children.
[00:47:22]  How relieved were you when that was the conclusion?
[00:47:26]  I would say very relieved, but also not surprised.
[00:47:29]  But had you feared losing contact with your kids?
[00:47:33]  I couldn't imagine anything worse.
[00:47:34]  I mean, during the time of the evaluation, I was only allowed to be around the kids with supervision, a therapist, supervisor.
[00:47:42]  That's awful.
[00:47:43]  Yeah.
[00:47:47]  I remember there was a time when I was under the evaluation where my daughter came up to me and she said, you know, Dad, I need to go to the bathroom.
[00:47:57]  And I looked at the therapist and I wasn't allowed to take my daughter to the bathroom.
[00:48:05]  You know, we had to get someone else to do it because I couldn't be alone with my child at the time.
[00:48:12]  It was tough.
[00:48:12]  It was a dark time.
[00:48:14]  It was a dark time for everybody.
[00:48:18]  Did you ever feel like ending it all?

=== Thrown Into a Burning Fire (05:05) ===

[00:48:21]  Yeah.
[00:48:22]  Seriously?
[00:48:24]  Did you come close to trying?
[00:48:28]  What did you do?
[00:48:32]  I considered a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
[00:48:37]  And, you know, I've spoken about this before.
[00:48:43]  I just decided that I wasn't going to be able to get through this.
[00:48:47]  It was too much.
[00:48:48]  And I decided that it would probably be better if I wasn't here.
[00:48:55]  And I just swam out into the ocean a long way.
[00:48:59]  We were down in the Cayman Islands, so I swam out a long way.
[00:49:01]  But then as I was out there in the ocean, I just thought about my kids standing on shore.
[00:49:08]  They were on shore at the time?
[00:49:09]  No.
[00:49:09]  No, but you thought about...
[00:49:10]  I thought about them standing on shore and asking where I was.
[00:49:16]  And that made you come back?
[00:49:18]  Yeah.
[00:49:19]  Otherwise, you're just going to keep going until inevitably you would have drowned.
[00:49:23]  I mean, it wasn't a great plan, you know, but I was desperate.
[00:49:28]  I wasn't thinking clearly.
[00:49:31]  I mean, it's horrendous that you'd reach that point for any human being.
[00:49:36]  Yeah.
[00:49:37]  The lowest moment of your life.
[00:49:40]  I hope so.
[00:49:42]  Yeah.
[00:49:44]  Your career was basically immediately cancelled.
[00:49:49]  You were dropped by your talent agency, William Morris.
[00:49:52]  You left two other projects, Shotgun Wedding with Jennifer Lopez and the Paramount Series Offer, which we talked about, about the making of the Godfather.
[00:50:01]  You were not able to work.
[00:50:03]  You had no income.
[00:50:04]  At one stage, you were reported to have been acting as some kind of estate agent in Cayman Islands just to make ends meet.
[00:50:11]  Is that true?
[00:50:12]  Yep.
[00:50:13]  That was the only way you could make money.
[00:50:15]  Yeah.
[00:50:15]  So your career just basically was just bang, done.
[00:50:18]  Yes.
[00:50:19]  When that was happening, it was all obviously around the time of Arthur Weinstein and the Me Too movement and the Time's Up movement and so on.
[00:50:28]  Did you think you were just going to be another star chucked on this bonfire and there would be no way back?
[00:50:34]  Or what did you think?
[00:50:35]  I mean, I was.
[00:50:37]  I was thrown into this fire that was burning its way through the industry.
[00:50:43]  In some ways, the genesis of the movement is pivotal and vital and healthy.
[00:50:51]  I think what it started to become is not.
[00:50:56]  It became a witch hunt, it felt like, where, you know, people were getting thrown into this fire.
[00:51:05]  And sometimes by people who were throwing them into the fire with good intentions, and sometimes by people who were throwing people into the fire to save themselves.
[00:51:15]  But I don't think they realized that every single person who was thrown into the fire was just fuel for the fire.
[00:51:21]  And the fire was just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger until it burned everybody.
[00:51:27]  So someone who, by your own admission, the day before all this happened, or the morning of the first Instagram leak, felt you're untouchable and heading to Hollywood superstar and potentially, that's a pretty extraordinary turn of events that literally within three months, you're done.
[00:51:46]  It was a massive swing of a pendulum.
[00:51:50]  Yeah.
[00:51:51]  I mean, you literally did become untouchable, but for different reasons.
[00:51:55]  Yeah.
[00:51:55]  People wouldn't touch you with a bargebol.
[00:51:58]  Yes.
[00:51:59]  I couldn't get jobs outside of Hollywood.
[00:52:02]  You know, I applied for multiple jobs while living in the Cayman Islands.
[00:52:08]  I applied to be a timeshare salesman.
[00:52:12]  I applied to be a drama teacher.
[00:52:15]  I applied to be a real estate agent.
[00:52:18]  And, you know, each time the letter we got back from the government, an official Caymanian government letter said, due to issues of character, we do not think it is in the best interests of the community for this person to be admitted to the Cayman Islands.
[00:52:34]  The day those Instagram leaks occurred, how rich were you at the time?
[00:52:42]  I wouldn't say that I was sitting on a lot of money.
[00:52:45]  I would say that I was incredibly financially irresponsible.
[00:52:51]  But what were you worth, would you guess?
[00:52:55]  I mean, we owned a house in Los Angeles.
[00:53:01]  I had big paychecks coming through, but, you know, I didn't pay cash for my house.
[00:53:06]  I had a mortgage.
[00:53:08]  And even though I had these big checks coming through, I had a big, extravagant lifestyle.
[00:53:14]  And I had, you know, business manager being like, you cannot spend this much money.
[00:53:18]  And, you know, your wife cannot spend this much money.
[00:53:22]  So we had big checks coming through, but in a way, I was also living paycheck to paycheck.

=== Dysfunctional Family History of Abuse (10:28) ===

[00:53:26]  Because you were the, you know, you're from the famous Hammer oil family.
[00:53:32]  Your great-grandfather was Armin Hammer, his oil tycoon.
[00:53:35]  There were reports that you were cut off from any inheritance from the family oil fortune.
[00:53:41]  Is that true?
[00:53:42]  Yeah, I haven't received any inheritance or anything like that.
[00:53:45]  What could that have been if this hadn't happened to you?
[00:53:47]  There was a world in which my life could have looked very differently.
[00:53:50]  There was a world in which I would have finished high school and then gone to college and then gotten an MBA and then gone to work with my dad and had job security for the rest of my life and probably never done anything exciting.
[00:54:04]  But it would have been dependable and I would have been okay.
[00:54:08]  And I chose at an early age that that just wasn't the life for me.
[00:54:12]  Your aunt Casey came forward and publicly said she wasn't surprised about the allegations about you because the family had a history of abuse.
[00:54:22]  Let's take a look at what she said.
[00:54:25]  We are the true definition of dysfunctional and it's, again, threats of bodily harm or retribution or disownment.
[00:54:34]  I mean, there was always this, if you embarrass or do anything outside the family, and we were always photographed and surveillant, you know, the cameras by our own family.
[00:54:43]  It was like they were watching every move we made.
[00:54:46]  So when the allegations against Army Hammer were made public, did you say, of course, this is this family?
[00:54:56]  How did you process it?
[00:54:58]  I wasn't surprised.
[00:54:59]  And the reason I say that is because what I experienced growing up was so familiar.
[00:55:05]  And it's not something, Tamron, that you just wake up one day and decide to become a monster.
[00:55:09]  It's a learned behavior.
[00:55:12]  Casey claimed that her father, who was your grandfather, sexually abused her as a child and killed a man over a gambling debt.
[00:55:20]  She also revealed that Armand, who you were named after, was his name, said that he, sorry, she also said that Armand, who you were named after, was a monster of psychological warfare who threatened sexual violence on your great-grandmother.
[00:55:36]  And as a result of all this, you then came forward and said a pastor sexually abused you when you were 13, and that may have sparked the whole thing with BDSM and so on.
[00:55:46]  Do you think there's any truth to what she was saying there, that there's something almost genetic about this, that it was just a lot of stuff in the family of sexual abuse going on, and that when you yourself were subjected to it with this past, and I'll come to that in a moment, but it all just was a potent, toxic cocktail?
[00:56:05]  I don't know, because it goes to sort of like the nature versus nurture argument.
[00:56:10]  I can't speak to what Casey's childhood was like.
[00:56:15]  Is she still alive?
[00:56:17]  I'm assuming she is.
[00:56:18]  You don't have any relationship with her?
[00:56:20]  I've never had a relationship with my aunt.
[00:56:22]  I've never been with my aunt alone, one-on-one, in my entire life.
[00:56:27]  So when she was on a documentary talking about me, it was surprising.
[00:56:34]  I didn't understand how she became an authority on me or my behaviors.
[00:56:40]  I think that, you know, in my family's history, were there dysfunctional people?
[00:56:48]  Absolutely.
[00:56:49]  In anyone's family history, there are dysfunctional people.
[00:56:52]  Does that mean it necessarily is going to directly translate into my life?
[00:56:56]  Maybe in some ways.
[00:56:58]  Is it my fault that there are dysfunctional patterns in my history or family history?
[00:57:04]  No, that's not my fault, but it is my responsibility.
[00:57:06]  And if I don't want to pass that down to my children, I have to turn around and face that and say, okay, I need to do the work on this.
[00:57:14]  The incident with this pastor when you were 13, what actually happened there?
[00:57:19]  There was a pastor in the church that we went to who took an interest in me.
[00:57:25]  And, you know, the words we now know to use is I was groomed by this pastor and then sexually abused.
[00:57:33]  In what way?
[00:57:35]  In all the unpleasant ways.
[00:57:37]  Did he rape you?
[00:57:38]  No, I was never raped, but it was.
[00:57:42]  Physical sexual abuse.
[00:57:43]  Yes.
[00:57:44]  Do you remember being traumatized by that?
[00:57:47]  Yeah.
[00:57:48]  Yeah.
[00:57:48]  And do you think there's a link between that and then your proclivity for quite extreme sexual behavior?
[00:57:55]  You know, I don't know is the short answer for that.
[00:58:00]  It's going to screw anybody up.
[00:58:01]  I mean, there's a lot of things.
[00:58:02]  Yeah, for sure.
[00:58:02]  I mean, there's definitely ramifications for childhood sexual abuse.
[00:58:07]  Do I think that being introduced to sex in a way where I was completely out of control led to me wanting to be in control in a sexual relationship?
[00:58:17]  Sure.
[00:58:18]  That logically makes sense to me.
[00:58:20]  I mean, I'm not a sex therapist, but that makes sense to me.
[00:58:24]  Do I also think that people like what they like and maybe that can exist independent of trauma?
[00:58:31]  Yeah, I think that that exists too.
[00:58:34]  I think, again, there's probably some sort of overlap there.
[00:58:38]  A year ago, the Hollywood reporter suddenly announced that prosecutors in the LAPD at Los Angeles County said that you would not face criminal charges in the case involving Effie, the LA district attorney, said, due to the complexity of the relationship and inability to prove a non-consensual, forcible sexual encounter, we're unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
[00:59:03]  And you said, I'm very grateful to the DA for conducting a thorough investigation and coming to the conclusion, I've stood by this entire time, that no crime was committed.
[00:59:11]  I look forward to beginning what will be a long, difficult process of putting my life back together now that my name has been cleared.
[00:59:19]  I mean, that was a time when if the LAPD could have nailed you, they would have been desperate to do so.
[00:59:24]  Yes.
[00:59:25]  There was a lot of allegations being made about famous people, but not much of it was leading to actual convictions, you know, quorum.
[00:59:32]  But while that investigation was going on for two and a half years, you must have considered the possibility of potentially being charged and potentially being convicted and maybe go to jail.
[00:59:41]  I mean, that was a fear.
[00:59:42]  It was a fear.
[00:59:44]  I think you never know how those things are going to go.
[00:59:50]  And that's what my attorneys kept saying to me over and over and over.
[00:59:54]  And I would say, I didn't rape anybody.
[00:59:57]  I didn't do this.
[00:59:58]  This is provably untrue.
[01:00:01]  And they would say, you can't say anything because you never know how this is going to go.
[01:00:06]  And I think that was a big part of why I stayed silent for so long.
[01:00:10]  Partially because I wanted to make sure that when I did finally say something, I wasn't leading with anger at this situation.
[01:00:18]  This is a very complicated situation.
[01:00:19]  And there are people who have been in this situation where they were violently attacked or abused or raped.
[01:00:28]  And that is a massive issue that we are dealing with.
[01:00:32]  In this situation, I knew that it wasn't true, but my lawyers were saying, if you go out there and say anything, that could be the thing that tips the scale.
[01:00:42]  And yes, we have all the evidence that we're looking at that shows that this was a consensual relationship.
[01:00:47]  But you never know what will happen.
[01:00:49]  You might get charged.
[01:00:50]  And if you get charged, you're going to court.
[01:00:52]  And if you go to court, you never know what a jury is going to do.
[01:00:55]  It's scary.
[01:00:56]  You feel like your life is in jeopardy.
[01:00:59]  How relieved were you when that news broke?
[01:01:02]  I remember exactly where I was when that call came in.
[01:01:06]  I was standing in an airport.
[01:01:08]  I was standing in an airport.
[01:01:09]  I was in New York in an airport.
[01:01:11]  And I was about to fly over to a friend of mine's wedding.
[01:01:15]  And I remember I was standing in the airport and that call came through and I couldn't even help myself.
[01:01:20]  I yelled out loud.
[01:01:22]  In the middle of the airport.
[01:01:23]  In the middle of the airport.
[01:01:24]  I was so relieved that it finally felt like this chapter of my life was done.
[01:01:31]  In January 2024, so about six months later, Effie didn't just double down, kind of trebled down.
[01:01:39]  She penned an essay for Medium, which is entitled, My Traumatizing Experience with My Rapist Army Hammer.
[01:01:47]  And she then went into details, calling you a manipulative psychopath, that you'd been so cruel, you'd severely damaged and crushed her, you raped and beat her.
[01:01:57]  She became more and more scared of you.
[01:01:59]  I explained I felt disassociated, overwhelmed with shame and self-blame, frequently nauseous, began self-harming since he assaulted me.
[01:02:06]  I couldn't see him anymore.
[01:02:08]  And she quoted you as saying, I need to rape you again.
[01:02:11]  Remember when you were on the floor and I walked away and grabbed a knife, you were crying on the floor and I left you in a pile of tears, grabbed a knife and held it to your throat and raped you more.
[01:02:19]  Everything else seemed boring.
[01:02:21]  You crying and screaming, me standing over you, I felt like a god.
[01:02:25]  I mean, pretty devastating to read that.
[01:02:28]  The quotes that she ascribed to you, were they true?
[01:02:32]  I don't remember saying those things.
[01:02:34]  I know that.
[01:02:35]  But they could be true.
[01:02:36]  I know that we had the encounter that she had planned, and I know that we spoke about it afterwards.
[01:02:43]  I don't know that those were the words that we used.
[01:02:46]  But you could have said it.
[01:02:48]  It's the kind of language you were using with her.
[01:02:51]  In the context of a relationship like that, that would be the language that you use, yeah.
[01:02:56]  But again, your position would be this was role play, fantasy.
[01:02:59]  Correct.
[01:02:59]  And one that she was fully on board with.
[01:03:01]  Correct.
[01:03:03]  Why would someone who spent so long with you, and you've explained this to a degree, but were you surprised that even when the LAPD didn't lead to any charges being made and the DA's office dropped the case, were you surprised that she then did this piece, as I say, kind of trebling down on what she'd said?
[01:03:24]  At this point, nothing really surprises me with her.
[01:03:29]  Do you think she actually, I might have asked you this earlier, but do you think she actually believes this at this stage?
[01:03:36]  I think that there's a legitimate possibility that she's convinced herself that this is true.
[01:03:42]  But at the same time, I don't know what's going on with her.
[01:03:45]  She's also spent the last year on social media saying that she wants my nine-year-old daughter to be raped.
[01:03:52]  So I don't think that we're dealing with...
[01:03:54]  Really?

=== Never Forget the Me Too Context (10:53) ===

[01:03:55]  Yeah, oh yeah.
[01:03:56]  Oh yeah.
[01:03:56]  That's horrific.
[01:03:57]  I know.
[01:03:58]  I know.
[01:03:59]  And she's putting this out there on her platform.
[01:04:03]  Has she tried to contact you?
[01:04:05]  Well, I have blocked every single avenue of communication.
[01:04:10]  So, I mean, through lawyers, there's been a lot of communication through lawyers of her asking for money in return for her silence and, you know, extortionate.
[01:04:22]  How much money?
[01:04:22]  Oh, millions and millions of dollars.
[01:04:25]  Like what?
[01:04:25]  Millions and millions of dollars.
[01:04:27]  10 million?
[01:04:28]  Not quite that much, but yeah, a lot of money that I don't have, you know.
[01:04:33]  And by the way, even if I did have it, I'm not sure I would give it to her.
[01:04:38]  But do you think money is her main incentive now from you?
[01:04:42]  If I'm going to go off of communications between my lawyer and her lawyers, yes.
[01:04:49]  Yes.
[01:04:51]  You entered a 12-step program after you reached rock bottom.
[01:04:55]  What did that do for you?
[01:04:59]  It gave me a new life.
[01:05:01]  It gave me a sense of freedom.
[01:05:03]  It gave me a sense of self-esteem that I'd been hungry for my whole life.
[01:05:07]  It allowed me to be the father that my kids deserve.
[01:05:10]  It allowed me to be the friend that I want to be to people.
[01:05:16]  It's the best thing that ever happened to me outside of having.
[01:05:18]  Do you ever drink alcohol now?
[01:05:19]  No.
[01:05:20]  I have no interests.
[01:05:21]  When was the last time you had a drink?
[01:05:23]  Three and a half years ago.
[01:05:24]  And no drugs, presumably.
[01:05:26]  So a very clean, very different life.
[01:05:28]  Yeah.
[01:05:28]  And a better life.
[01:05:30]  Sometimes a more painful life, sometimes a more stressful life, because I have to now feel all of these things that I was running from before, but ultimately a better life.
[01:05:39]  Have you been able to have relationships?
[01:05:42]  Yeah.
[01:05:43]  Yeah.
[01:05:44]  I mean, I don't want to be Purian, but the sex side of things.
[01:05:50]  Is that very different, Vienna?
[01:05:55]  In the sense that, like everything else in my life, there is a higher degree of control.
[01:06:03]  And nothing feels out of control for me.
[01:06:06]  Nothing feels wild for me.
[01:06:08]  Everything feels more balanced and healthy.
[01:06:14]  And there isn't a little devil on your shoulder missing the cannibalism.
[01:06:20]  Well, it's hard to miss something that you've never done, but...
[01:06:22]  You know what I mean?
[01:06:23]  Yeah, I mean, there's always going to be a devil on our shoulders.
[01:06:26]  It's just about how much bandwidth you give him.
[01:06:30]  And right now I'm in a place where he's still there, but he gets very little bandwidth.
[01:06:36]  There were reports that Robert Downey Jr. paid for you to go to rehab.
[01:06:39]  Is that right?
[01:06:40]  No, he did not.
[01:06:41]  He did not pay for me to go to rehab.
[01:06:42]  Has he been supportive to you?
[01:06:46]  I would say that, yes, he has.
[01:06:49]  You don't seem convinced.
[01:06:50]  Because that was well reported.
[01:06:51]  Is that really not the case?
[01:06:55]  I don't want to bring anyone else into my situation.
[01:07:00]  There are a number of people who have been extremely helpful, and I'm incredibly grateful.
[01:07:06]  Is he one of them?
[01:07:07]  Yes.
[01:07:08]  In what way, though?
[01:07:10]  In the way where anyone in Hollywood who suffers from any sort of addiction issues, whether it be alcohol or process addiction or drugs, decides to get sober, that guy will find you and he will help you.
[01:07:27]  What was the best advice he gave you?
[01:07:33]  Sit down, shut up, everything's going to be okay.
[01:07:38]  Simple as that.
[01:07:39]  Yeah.
[01:07:41]  Did you hear from Leo DiCaprio?
[01:07:44]  Because he started with him, didn't he?
[01:07:46]  Or Julia Roberts?
[01:07:48]  What do you feel about the fact they didn't contact you, having started movies with you?
[01:07:53]  I try not to think about the people who didn't contact me.
[01:07:56]  I try to focus on the people who did, who showed their support.
[01:08:00]  Which other notable people did actually reach out to you and help?
[01:08:04]  A few.
[01:08:05]  A few.
[01:08:05]  Give me some names.
[01:08:10]  Luca Guadanino has also been vocally supportive, which is something that I could not appreciate more.
[01:08:18]  But at the same time, I'm also well aware that it is a precarious situation right now.
[01:08:24]  And anyone who vocalizes support comes under fire.
[01:08:29]  And I understand that my situation was inflammatory.
[01:08:36]  And anyone who gets too close might also light on fire.
[01:08:40]  Given what he went through, has Johnny Depp been in touch?
[01:08:43]  You start with him in the Lone Ranger?
[01:08:46]  We've communicated a few times.
[01:08:47]  Yeah.
[01:08:48]  How?
[01:08:48]  Yeah.
[01:08:50]  Phone, FaceTime.
[01:08:51]  Shared cannibal text.
[01:08:53]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:08:53]  Yeah.
[01:08:54]  Pointers, you know.
[01:08:55]  But has he been helpful?
[01:08:56]  Because he's been through a very traumatic legal battle himself, which he ended up.
[01:09:02]  I didn't bring this to him.
[01:09:03]  He didn't bring his to me.
[01:09:04]  It was more of a social call.
[01:09:07]  How are you?
[01:09:07]  Good to see you.
[01:09:08]  Glad you're still alive.
[01:09:09]  You know, that kind of thing.
[01:09:10]  Mickey Rort once said to me when he was in the wilderness in Hollywood before the wrestler brought him back that the stench of death around someone in Hollywood when things are bad can be seen as contagious and that's why people avoid you.
[01:09:24]  They don't want to catch the failure or cancellation virus.
[01:09:30]  Does that resonate with you?
[01:09:33]  I'll tell a story that I just told recently to someone.
[01:09:37]  There was a guy, and I don't want to get too specific, but there was a guy named Clark who very early on in my situation, a couple months in, I was just starting to get sober.
[01:09:51]  I was complaining to this guy, Clark, and I was like, I can't believe all of these people.
[01:09:57]  Like, people are sending me private emails saying, I know this isn't you.
[01:10:01]  Like, this is crazy.
[01:10:03]  This guy, like, I've known you for years, this guy who they're talking about, like, it's just not you.
[01:10:07]  And I was like, why are you sending me emails?
[01:10:10]  Say something about this.
[01:10:11]  Like, why is everyone saying to me directly, like, we know this isn't real, say it publicly?
[01:10:17]  Like, help me.
[01:10:18]  And Clark looked at me and he said, you know, what kind of friend are you?
[01:10:22]  And I said, what are you talking about?
[01:10:23]  I'm a great friend.
[01:10:24]  I would do anything for my friends.
[01:10:25]  Literally anything for my friends.
[01:10:26]  That's the kind of friend I am.
[01:10:27]  And he goes, yeah, you think you're such a good friend?
[01:10:29]  And I go, I know I'm a good friend.
[01:10:31]  He goes, really?
[01:10:33]  You set your house on fire and your house is burning to the ground.
[01:10:38]  And now, what?
[01:10:39]  You want your friends to run into a burning house with you?
[01:10:42]  What happens to your friends when they run into a burning house?
[01:10:45]  And I said, they would get burned.
[01:10:46]  He said, do you want your friends to get burned?
[01:10:49]  I said, no.
[01:10:50]  He said, if you were a good friend, what would you want for your friends?
[01:10:55]  I said, I would want my friends to stay as far away from the fire as possible.
[01:10:59]  And he reached over and he patted my leg and he said, now you're thinking like a good friend.
[01:11:02]  And he walked away.
[01:11:04]  See, I don't agree with him.
[01:11:05]  No?
[01:11:05]  No.
[01:11:06]  Okay.
[01:11:07]  I would never forget the ones who ran towards the fire.
[01:11:11]  And I never would.
[01:11:12]  They would be my proper friends.
[01:11:14]  By the way, I never will forget them.
[01:11:15]  And the ones who ran the other way from the fire?
[01:11:17]  Yes.
[01:11:18]  Not so much.
[01:11:19]  Correct.
[01:11:20]  But there's a difference between me appreciating and celebrating the ones who ran into the fire on their own volition and me expecting or asking anyone to.
[01:11:31]  But I just think all these situations, I've talked to Kevin Spacey at Fury Studio, you know, and I'd say anyone who's been through these things, it's unbelievably traumatic for the person in your position.
[01:11:43]  And neither of you sat here and claimed to be angelic by any means, but neither of you have been convicted of any crimes.
[01:11:48]  And yet you both got unceremoniously cancelled.
[01:11:52]  And I do think, you know, I've been through not as bad things, but I've been through ups and downs in my career.
[01:11:57]  I never forget the people that contacted me.
[01:11:59]  But I also, I never forget or really forgive the ones who run away, who were in touch all the time.
[01:12:06]  And then the moment the wind blows the wrong way, they're out of dodge.
[01:12:10]  I don't forget them.
[01:12:11]  I bet you're the same.
[01:12:13]  Yep.
[01:12:13]  And I mean, you even had people who came to your defense without doing anything on their own who suffered consequences from that.
[01:12:20]  Yes.
[01:12:20]  And it's Sharon Osborne, my good friend.
[01:12:23]  That's who I'm thinking.
[01:12:24]  Lost her beloved job on American television because she said she had the audacity to ask, what had I said that was racist?
[01:12:32]  Answer nothing.
[01:12:33]  It was absolutely unbelievable.
[01:12:35]  I want to play a clip from Kevin actually from the interview he gave me.
[01:12:38]  This is about the whole Me Too thing.
[01:12:40]  We've touched on this earlier, but I want to just see what you think of it.
[01:12:42]  Do you think the pendulum post-Me Too, you were caught up in that first wave, that hysterical first wave that saw many people taken down.
[01:12:50]  But do you think it's gone too far?
[01:12:52]  Well, I could say yes, and not just in my particular case.
[01:13:00]  There have been others that I feel, you know, they may have been inappropriate.
[01:13:04]  They may have done something that they wish they hadn't done.
[01:13:07]  But I didn't think that what it was and maybe what they even admitted to was so heinous that they should have lost their career or their ability to make their livelihood.
[01:13:19]  I think that is too far.
[01:13:22]  But I also think we have to be mindful that it doesn't swing back too far in the other direction.
[01:13:29]  What do you think of that?
[01:13:32]  I mean, I agree with him.
[01:13:36]  I think the genesis and origin of this movement was necessary.
[01:13:43]  For a long, long time, people in power were in positions to abuse it with no recourse and no fallout.
[01:13:52]  And that's not okay.
[01:13:55]  I think that the pendulum had swung so far in that direction that it's probably expected that there be a bit of an over-correction.
[01:14:04]  But have we lost as a society the ability to forgive people who genuinely atone for what they did and not allowed them a second chance?
[01:14:13]  It seems to me both you and Kevin, having gone through a lot of legal stuff and come out without any conviction, you ought to be entitled to come back.
[01:14:24]  And yet there seems to be no mechanism post-MeTwo for anyone to be able to do that.
[01:14:29]  It's like you're almost, you know, you're tainted in a way that seems to me to be unfair because you weren't convicted of any crime.
[01:14:38]  And a lot of it is he said, she said, he said, he said, whatever.
[01:14:43]  But if there's no actual criminal conviction, why are you not allowed to come back?

=== Gallows Humor in Hollywood (05:46) ===

[01:14:48]  Do you feel that?
[01:14:50]  Yes.
[01:14:52]  What's your message to Hollywood producers who may be thinking, you know what, I know they dropped the thing, but I can't touch him?
[01:15:04]  I think that's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[01:15:08]  You know, if they were smart, they could get guys like two-time Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey for probably pretty cheap right now for a good project.
[01:15:21]  And probably a better actor.
[01:15:23]  And I suspect you would be too.
[01:15:26]  I would hope so.
[01:15:26]  The emotional range you've had to go through for real would probably enhance your ability as an actor.
[01:15:33]  I think that there is an access to myself and to my emotions that would have been difficult for me to get to if I spent my entire life numbing out my emotions.
[01:15:48]  There's a kind of irony, isn't there, that the social network made you very famous.
[01:15:54]  Huge hit movie about the beginnings of Facebook.
[01:15:58]  And social media had a big part in ruining your career.
[01:16:01]  You know, Army the Cannibal became the kind of go-to Twitter headline for people.
[01:16:08]  I hadn't actually thought about that.
[01:16:09]  That's very funny.
[01:16:10]  It is, it's not funny for you, but it's an irony, isn't it?
[01:16:14]  In a sort of like gallows humor kind of way.
[01:16:16]  You know, that's the thing.
[01:16:18]  I'm at a point now where I've realized the best way to get through these difficult times is to cry when you need to and then to laugh when you need to.
[01:16:30]  And you've done both today.
[01:16:32]  Yeah.
[01:16:34]  Full emotional gamut here.
[01:16:35]  Well, as we head towards the end of the interview, how do you feel about the conversation we've had?
[01:16:40]  I'm very happy with it.
[01:16:42]  It feels measured.
[01:16:43]  It feels fair.
[01:16:45]  It feels factually based.
[01:16:48]  It is cold enough in here to store meat.
[01:16:51]  But other than that, it's been a good conversation.
[01:16:53]  I don't like to sweat on TV.
[01:16:55]  Yeah.
[01:16:56]  You're still living in the Cayman Islands.
[01:16:58]  Do you have a job at the moment?
[01:17:01]  I do.
[01:17:02]  I started working with a friend of mine on a project that he's working on.
[01:17:07]  The film project, TV?
[01:17:09]  This one is not in the entertainment world, but I have also written a script with a good friend of mine that is pretty autobiographical, and it's something that we want to shoot and direct together in a roundabout way, yeah.
[01:17:25]  How does it end?
[01:17:27]  Well, I can't tell you now.
[01:17:28]  You got to watch it.
[01:17:29]  Does it end?
[01:17:30]  I mean, you know, the classic Jerry Bruckheimer Don Simpson movie cocktail is you start setting up the characters, they have a massive pits moment, then they have redemption and glory.
[01:17:41]  That's the recipe of every hit movie.
[01:17:43]  Yeah, I would say that is very much the American model of films.
[01:17:46]  This is a much more sort of European-styled film.
[01:17:49]  It's not going to end with you swimming out to the ocean.
[01:17:51]  No.
[01:17:52]  No.
[01:17:54]  Your kids are with you in the Cayman Islands.
[01:17:56]  Do you share custody with your wife?
[01:17:59]  I mean, do you have much of an income at the moment or not?
[01:18:03]  No, not very much.
[01:18:04]  What is that like for someone who had so much money and flashed it around so much and could squander it to your heart's content?
[01:18:11]  What's it like to actually have very little money?
[01:18:15]  I don't know that you will believe me, and I'm pretty sure that they won't, but it's very liberating.
[01:18:21]  Really?
[01:18:22]  It's very freeing.
[01:18:23]  Well, I guess nobody asks you for money, apart from the exes you've made allegations.
[01:18:27]  Just lawyers.
[01:18:28]  Right.
[01:18:28]  Yeah.
[01:18:29]  But, you know, one of the things that fame is everybody wants a piece of the action.
[01:18:32]  If there's no action of a piece of, they all disappear again.
[01:18:34]  Well, it's also, it's when you give up all of the things that you think define who you are or make you what you are, and you no longer have those things, it forces you to leave the external world and to go internal and to actually find out who you are and what you are.
[01:18:54]  And money has very little to do with that.
[01:18:58]  How old are your kids now?
[01:18:59]  My daughter's nine and my son's seven.
[01:19:01]  So I have a 12-year-old daughter and she's been heavily into Google for some time.
[01:19:06]  When your kids tap your name into Google, inevitably they're going to see the word cannibal.
[01:19:11]  Have you had that conversation?
[01:19:12]  Have you tried to explain that part of it, the infamous headline part of it?
[01:19:18]  No.
[01:19:19]  It's not the time yet.
[01:19:21]  I think that would be introducing the idea of sexuality to kids who are too young to be introduced to that.
[01:19:28]  Are you dreading that moment of having to?
[01:19:30]  Yeah.
[01:19:32]  Very tough conversation to have, but one you probably have to because they're going to find out.
[01:19:37]  Yes.
[01:19:37]  Again, such is the nature of the internet.
[01:19:42]  It's a scary idea, but an inevitable one.
[01:19:45]  Are you a much better father now because of all this?
[01:19:48]  You've got much more time in them, I guess.
[01:19:50]  When I'm in town, I take them to school every day.
[01:19:54]  I pick them up from school every day.
[01:19:56]  I am with them throughout the rest of the day, and then I drop them off to their mom's house at night every single day.
[01:20:03]  What do they think Army Hammer does?
[01:20:09]  Well, they know that I was an actor.
[01:20:11]  M was an actor because they've seen the age-appropriate films that I've done.
[01:20:16]  Am or was.
[01:20:18]  Am.
[01:20:20]  Yeah.
[01:20:20]  Less opportunity, but am.
[01:20:24]  But more than anything, they just know me as dad, which is all I care about.
[01:20:31]  Army, thank you for being so open and honest with me.
[01:20:34]  Sure.

=== A Better Father Through Pain (01:00) ===

[01:20:35]  Thank you for having me.
[01:20:36]  I think that I don't understand how anyone could listen to this or watch this and not think at the very least you ought to be given another chance.
[01:20:44]  I don't understand why you would conclude that from everything I've read up about your story.
[01:20:49]  I think it's one of those things where you were caught up in a sort of Salem witch trial along with a lot of people, some of whom thoroughly deserve their come-uppance.
[01:20:59]  And to a degree, by your own admission, you probably did deserve a correction in your life and a bit of a come-uppance.
[01:21:05]  I'm not sure you deserve what happened to you.
[01:21:07]  It's so complete, the cancellation took everything away from you.
[01:21:12]  And I'm not entirely sure why.
[01:21:15]  I think it was unfair.
[01:21:17]  But I appreciate you being so candid.
[01:21:19]  I wish you all the very best.
[01:21:20]  I hope someone is watching this and thinking, you know what?
[01:21:24]  Ryan Reynolds can't do them all.
[01:21:27]  Like I said, you can get him for cheap these days.
[01:21:30]  I'm still looking for James Bond, you know that.
[01:21:32]  Good to see you, Army.
[01:21:33]  Thank you very much.
[01:21:34]  Appreciate your time.