“Rape allegations are just the tip of the iceberg”: The series that explores the life (and family) of Armie Hammer

It was first spread among jokes: in January 2021, an anonymous Instagram account spread messages allegedly sent by the actor Armie Hammer (Santa Monica, California, USA, 36 years old), the then unstoppable protagonist of productions such as

(2017),

(2016) or

(2010).

These messages were dedicated to different women and in them, the actor seemed to exhibit a wide range of sexual fetishes related to cannibalism, slavery and violence.

“I am 100% cannibal.

Fuck.

I'm afraid to admit it.

I have previously ripped the heart out of a live animal and eaten it while it was still hot,” read one of them.

“If I fucked you until you were in a vegetative state, I would support you, feed you, take care of you and keep fucking you,” promised another.

They were taken, at first, by bizarre texts of questionable veracity.

There were those who defended Hammer against what seemed

(teases someone for their unusual sexual preferences), considering that he was being humiliated for expressing intimate fantasies that did not have to be linked to real and criminal behavior.

Everything took a different turn on January 14, when one of the interpreter's ex-partners, Courtney Vucekovich, detailed her experience to the anonymous gossip website Page Six (in an article with the headline: "I wanted to cook myself on the barbecue and eat") " not just weird and gross, but emotionally abusive."

Vucekovich alleged that the sadomasochistic practices they had carried out had not been consensual.

from left

From left, Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer and Clint Eastwood at the premiere of 'J.Edgar' at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California on November 3, 2011. Lester Cohen (WireImage)

“It captivates you and, while it seduces you, it is preparing you for other things that are darker, harder and more exhausting.

Absorb all the good that can be in you.

She did some things to me that I wasn't comfortable with, convinced me they were okay, and put me in dangerous situations," the woman stated.

She recounted having suffered from panic attacks and needing therapy after her relationship with the actor, of whom she highlighted her "obsessive" character and her ability to manipulate.

Another woman, Paige Lorenze, after seeing those messages, also decided to speak publicly about Hammer, whom she promised to know well: she believed she had identified in those exchanges a pattern of behavior similar to the one that, according to her, the star had shown at that time.

“The scariest thing is that I truly loved him.

He would have let her do anything.

He had some control over me," she told E!

News.

Hammer has categorically denied the veracity of these messages through his representatives, but the scandal has precipitated his departure from all the projects in which he had planned to participate.

, shot in 2019 and released in 2022 after a large number of postponements, was the last film in which the public has been able to see him (and he was conspicuously hidden in the promotion, including the poster).

The last thing that has been known about him is that he was working as a timeshare salesman near a hotel in the Cayman Islands, where his children and his ex-wife live, and that, according to

, he has completed a stay in rehabilitation to heal from his different addictions.

Hammer has been keeping a low profile all this time, perhaps in the hope that one day the gale would die down: this strategy, however, is now threatened by the premiere of

, a documentary by three episodes about the history of his family, which Discovery+ premieres this Friday, September 2, and which can be seen in Spain on the same date (weekly) through the HBO Max platform.

Armie Hammer and Elizabeth Chambers on the red carpet at the 2018 Oscars in Hollywood. Matt Winkelmeyer (Getty Images)

The documentary features the testimonies of several of the alleged victims of the star, who provide hitherto unpublished documents, such as audio messages (“My plan was to tie you up completely and incapacitate you, and then be able to do whatever I wanted in each hole of your body until I was tired,” Armie seems to be heard saying in one).

Casey Hammer, the actor's aunt, participates in it, who cut off the relationship with his relatives years ago and who in 2015 published an explosive autobiography,

(surviving my birthright, could be translated), where he denounced that his father, Julian Hammer (the actor's grandfather) had sexually abused her as a child and also other members of her family, a revelation she is expected to delve into in the docuseries.

“The rape and abuse allegations brought against Armie Hammer in recent years are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Hammer family.

In

, we witness truly disturbing and secret details, sinister that money and power have not been able to hide forever, ”promises Jason Sarlanis, head of crime and investigation content at Discovery +.

Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet at a BAFTA Awards party in Los Angeles on Jan. 6, 2018. Kevork Djansezian/BAFTA LA (Getty Images for BAFTA LA)

Five generations of power, privilege and violence

When Armie Hammer broke out in Hollywood thanks to his portrayal of the Winklevoss twins in

(2010), he didn't exactly need to make a living either.

Quite the contrary, the actor came from a millionaire family of oil tycoons, Soviet maneuverers and art dealers.

Not without its loopholes: his great-great-grandfather, Dr. Julius Hammer, a Russian immigrant on US soil, was sentenced to between three and 12 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter for having performed, in 1919, an abortion on the wife of a diplomat from his country : According to the jury's conclusions, Julius had let his patient "die like a dog".

And, to cover up the crime, he had attributed the death to the pandemic of the time, the so-called

.

With Julius in prison, his son, Armand Hammer (perhaps supported by Lenin and Stalin, according to the 1996 book

, by Edward Jay Epstein), took control of his company, Allied Drug & Chemical.

Epstein cites an ex-wife of Armand (in a biography that, yes and perhaps logically, was not authorized): she assures that Armand was the real person responsible for the abortion that led to murder.

His father

took the blame for him.

Armie Hammer at the premiere of 'The Lone Ranger' at Disney California Adventure Park in June 2013Kevin Winter (Getty Images)

Armand, of whom one of his wives even said that he was immune to "the suffering of others", increased the family fortune thanks to the oil company Occidental Petroleum, which he directed from 1957 until his death.

Always according to Epstein, Armand laundered money, used his role as an art dealer to finance Soviet espionage and facilitated illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's campaign, "in all likelihood, to pay for the

The biographer tells how one of Armand's lovers, whom he forced to change her name and wear disguises after being discovered by her wife, agreed to "extremely humiliating" sexual requests under the promise that he would take care of her. her family.

Finally, he excluded her from her will.

Armand had a son, Julian, Armie's grandfather.

Nor did he inherit control of the oil empire due to his "unstable behavior": in addition to the sexual abuse denounced by his daughter Casey, in 1955, on the morning of his 26th birthday, he was accused of murdering a man in his house for a alleged gambling debt.

He did not get to go to jail.

The judge found that he had acted in self-defense.

Performers Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg and Armie Hammer, during the launch of the DVD of 'The Social Network', in 2011, in Beverly Hills, California. Mark Sullivan (WireImage)

Michael Hammer, father of Armie, son of Julian and heir to the Armand businesses, took the family fortune to another level: he settled his family in the Cayman Islands and renounced his American citizenship.

He focused on his strict Christian faith and, incidentally, the sale of forged paintings by artists such as Rothko and Pollock, a scandal that led to the closure of his art dealership in 2011. According to a

report published in 2021, citing To close friends of Michael, the businessman has, for his spare time, a “sexual throne”: a huge chair with a hole in the seat, a cage and a hook.

Despite the disappearance from public life of Armie Hammer, Armand's namesake by the way, there is currently no ongoing police investigation against him.

The initial rape charge was dismissed following an investigation which, in December 2021, was concluded due to insufficient evidence.

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