Two years after the scandal broke out, which disgraced the once bankable star who starred in films such as the 2017 coming-of-age romantic drama Call Me By Your Name, Hammer sat down with writer James Kirchick of Graydon Carter’s Air Mail for an interview.
“I’m here to own my mistakes, take accountability for the fact that I was an a**hole, that I was selfish, that I used people to make me feel better, and when I was done, moved on,” he said.
Hammer shared he was molested at age 13 by a youth pastor at his church. This revelation was corroborated by two people including his godmother.
“It introduced sexuality into my life in a way that it was completely out of control,” Hammer divulged. “I was powerless in the situation. I had no agency in the situation. Sexuality was introduced to me in a scary way where I had no control. My interest then went on to: I want to have control in the situation, sexually… because being out of control was very dangerous for me and very uncomfortable.”
Hammer went on to say he could refute the first woman’s allegations if it weren’t for the conversation being deleted.
“If I still had these messages, I would have been able to put this to bed in .5 seconds,” Hammer said. “This alleged tape was a scene that was her idea. She planned all of the details out, all the way to what Starbucks I would see her at, how I would follow her home, how her front door would be open and unlocked and I would come in, and we would engage in what is called a ‘consensual non-consent scene,”
On 12 January 2021, an anonymous woman came forward on social media platform Instagram claiming to have an a four-year-long affair with Hammer, intimated graphic details of violence, cannibalism, and rape fantasies he sent to her via text message. A compendium of texts and screenshots were published including those which reportedly came from other exes.
“Women approached me with their affair stories as we talked, overwhelmed with grief, for days and nights without sleeping or eating, with some ending up in the ER,” she wrote on one Instagram story.
“I’m not responding to these bullshit claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic,” Hammer told Variety in a statement.
On 14 January 2021, Courtney Vucekovich, an app founder who claimed to have dated Hammer from June to October 2020, alleged to Page Six that the actor sexually coerced her, and made her feel unsafe.
More screenshots set the Internet ablaze, this time from Hammer’s secondary Instagram account including several photos and videos of women in bondage. In an interview with Playboy in 2013, Hammer said he was previously a “dominant lover” before getting together with his wife, Elizabeth Chambers.
On 25 January 2021, Paige Lorenze, Hammer’s 24-year-old ex said she dated him for four months in 2020 and corroborated the other exes’ stories.
One of Hammer’s lawyers denied the allegations, saying that “any interactions with this person” were “completely consensual.”
In the days and months that followed, Hammer would exit projects and was also dropped by his talent agency, WME.
Several Twitter users, including writer Muna Mire, claimed he’s working as a concierge at a Cayman Islands resort. The hotel in question told Variety that Hammer isn’t an employee but multiple sources claim otherwise.
In the scandal’s aftermath that caused the abrupt end of his career, Hammer said he contemplated suicide while in the Cayman Islands.