Armie Hammer has said that he is “grateful” for the career-ending allegations made against him.
In 2021, multiple women accused the Call Me By Your Name star of sexual misconduct, and one of them accused the actor of raping her back in 2016.
The Los Angeles Police Department launched a sexual assault investigation into the woman’s accusations, and it remains ongoing.
Armie, whose rep previously denied the woman’s “outrageous” accusations, is now speaking out about the allegations in an interview with Air Mail magazine.
The 36-year-old revealed he was sexually abused by a youth pastor at the age of 13, and said the incident first spurred his interest in BDSM.
He told the outlet: “Sexuality was introduced to me in a scary way where I had no control. My interests then went to: I want to have control in the situation, sexually.”
Speaking on the Painful Lessons podcast, the actor said of the scandal: “Whatever it was that people said, whatever it was that happened, I’m now at a place in my life where I’m grateful for every single bit of it.”
“I’m actually now at a place where I’m really grateful for it because where I was in my life before all of that stuff happened to me I didn’t feel good I never felt satisfied I never had enough I never was in a place where I was happy with myself where I had self-esteem.”
“I never knew how to give myself love. 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 to myself.”
On being accused of cannibalism, the actor explained: “People called me a cannibal. Like I ate people! What???? You know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to eat people!”
He added of his downfall: “It was an ego death, a career death. A neutron bomb went off in my life. It killed off [everything]”
