Armie Hammer and Elizabeth Chambers get divorced three years after the accusations of cannibalism and harassment
The actor, who has gone to rehab and did not face charges for rape, and the television host have made their separation official
Nothing can redeem Armie Hammer anymore, from interviews to friends to roles that reinvent him as a newly humble man. Even his wife has left him. The actor, blacklisted in Hollywood for the last two and a half years due to accusations of harassment, abuse and cannibalism, has finally broken all ties with his past. Now, 36-year-old Hammer and his wife, 40-year-old Texan journalist, host and businesswoman Elizabeth Chambers, have reached a divorce agreement that awaits the signature of a judge. TMZ reports that the couple has reached an agreement “regarding their property and any child and spousal support issues between them.”
The couple’s relationship has been broken for months, but the news of their official separation broke on the Tuesday after Father’s Day, when Chambers made an Instagram post acknowledging the “[dads] who are there, and the ones who show up.” Her own father appeared in the post’s images, with no trace of Hammer.
The couple got married in 2010 and separated in summer of 2020. She filed for divorce that year. Shortly afterwards, the turbulence came. In early 2021, Hammer was forced to leave two projects —a movie with Jennifer Lopez and a show based on the filming of The Godfather— after messages were published in which he spoke explicitly about cannibalism with a woman who was not his wife.
“Thinking of holding your heart in my hand and controlling when it beats,” reads one of the texts. “I’m 100% a cannibal. I want to eat you.” “Fuck. That’s scary to admit,” he goes on. “I’ve never admitted that before. I’ve cut the heart out of a living animal before and eaten it while still warm.” From there came the perfect storm for an actor who was at the peak of his career thanks to critical favorites like Call Me By Your Name and audience favorites like Rebecca on Netflix.
The couple was separated but not divorced at the time. Chambers then became the crutch of her still-husband and the father of eight-year-old Harper Grace and six-year-old Ford Douglas Armand. Shortly after the accusations went public, she posted a message on Instagram in which she said she was “trying to process everything that has transpired” and “shocked, heartbroken, and devastated.” Her focus, she said, was on her children, her work and her own healing. As time went on, it became clear that Chambers had been supporting her former partner and encouraged him to go into rehab. In mid-2021, Hammer decided to check into a clinic in Miami. He flew there from the Cayman Islands, where his family had moved during the pandemic; Chambers and their two children accompanied him to the airport. At the end of 2021, after almost nine months, the actor left the center and returned to the Cayman islands to be close to the children. Months later, he was seen selling timeshares at a resort. Variety confirmed the rumors among tourists: “The reality is he’s totally broke, and is trying to fill the days and earn money to support his family,” an anonymous source told the magazine.
By then, the history of the Social Network protagonist’s substance use had been made clear in a story in Vanity fair. Sources close to the actor and his family said that he “can literally drink a bottle of vodka and not feel it.” They also said that he “kept a stockpile of joints in his trailer, allegedly asked an assistant to procure mushrooms; and soaked pain medication with alcohol in his trailer” and that, according to a girlfriend, “he’s addicted to drugs because he has so much trauma that he cannot deal with stillness, face himself, or sit alone with his shit.”
In 2021, a woman who said she had maintained an intermittent relationship with Hammer for four years, during his marriage with Chambers, accused him of raping her in 2017 for four hours, among other nonconsual violent acts. A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced that, after “an extremely thorough review,” they found there was “insufficient evidence” to charge Hammer. “As prosecutors, we have an ethical responsibility to only charge cases that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt … Due to the complexity of the relationship and inability to prove a non-consensual, forcible sexual encounter, we are unable to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” they affirmed.
Four months ago, in February, Hammer broke his silence. In an interview with the magazine Air Mail, he denied the accusations of abuse, but he did offer up a mea culpa, saying that his power dynamics in his relationships were abusive due to his celebrity: “I’m here to own my mistakes, take accountability for the fact that I was an asshole, that I was selfish, that I used people to make me feel better, and when I was done, moved on. And treated people more poorly than they should have been treated.” He spoke about the sexual abuse he experienced at 13-years-old by a Protestant pastor and attributed to the incident his interest in BDSM practices. “What that did for me was it introduced sexuality into my life in a way that it was completely out of my control,” he said. “I was powerless in the situation. I had no agency in the situation. My interests then went to: I want to have control in the situation, sexually.”
In his first and last concession to the media, he revealed that he also had contemplated suicide: “I just walked out into the ocean and swam out as far as I could and hoped that either I drowned, or was hit by a boat, or eaten by a shark. Then I realized that my kids were still on shore, and that I couldn’t do that to my kids.” He did not mention Chambers, and for months she has not mentioned him either.
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