‘I’m really grateful for that’

Armie Hammer has broken his silence on the cannibalism allegations that have plagued his Hollywood career.

The 37-year-old “Call Me By Your Name” actor was rising to international stardom when his unexpected fall from grace took the playing field, following several painful allegations against him by his former girlfriends.

In February 2021, 26-year-old Effie Angelova accused Hammer of “violently” raping her and abusing her “mentally, emotionally, and sexually” in 2017, when she was 20 years old.

Despite claims that she had cannibalistic fantasies, Hammer denied the claims, saying that non-consensual criminal offenses had occurred during her four-year relationship with him.

Hammer’s alter ego, Courtney Vucekovich, told Page Six in January 2021 that the actor told her he “wants to break my ribs and barbecue and eat them.”

Appearing on the “Painful Lessons” podcast on Sunday, the actor addressed the surprising cannibalism allegations the experience led to his popularity.

“People called me a cannibal and everyone believed them,” he said in the podcast. “They say, ‘Yeah, that guy ate people.’ What are you talking about? You have to eat people, that’s weird?!

Hammer said that “there are inconsistencies in what people said,” including that he “is at a place in my life now where I’m grateful for every single bit of it.”

“I’m actually in a place now where I’m really grateful for it because where I was before all this happened in my life, I never felt good, I never felt satisfied, I never had There weren’t enough things, I was never in a place where I was happy with myself, where I had self-respect,” Hammer explained.

“I never knew how to love myself. I never knew how to give myself self-validation, but I had this job where I was able to get it from so many people that I never had to learn how to give it myself.

Then allegations surfaced Hammer’s silver screen career wasn’t the only one that collapsed.

The actor’s marriage to wife Elizabeth Chambers also fell apart, as he filed for break-up in July 2020. Both have two children.

“It was the death of the ego, the death of the career. A neutron bomb exploded in my life. It ended (everything),” he said, adding that he felt suicidal for this generation.

“There were times when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. I was hating it…so it went straight in…there was a time.

He continued, “I was standing on the shore and I swam out a long way and lay there… a half-hearted suicide attempt… but I felt I couldn’t do that to my children. ”

Hammer admitted that his acting career is “nowhere now.”

In a determined effort to foster a career rebirth, Hammer said he was developing his own “sandbox” by writing screenplays.