“This documentary contains graphic descriptions of violence, sexual abuse and coercive control.”
That’s the warning viewers see when they first tune into “House of Hammer,” a new three-part docuseries from Discovery+, which exposes details surrounding the sexual abuse allegations against Armie Hammer.
In early 2021, an onslaught of unverified messages that “The Social Network” star had allegedly sent to women surfaced on social media after one of his exes began to anonymously post graphic messages in which Hammer allegedly texted, “I am 100% a cannibal” and “I want to eat you.” The messages snowballed and Hammer’s career went into freefall.
Hammer has denied all allegations, maintaining that any and all interactions with his sexual partners were consensual and mutually participatory. But numerous women have accused him of abuse, coercion and even rape, which lead to an LAPD investigation.
If you’ve been on social media for the past year-and-a-half, “House of Hammer” repeats much of what you may have already seen. But the docuseries exposes more of the messages (which Hammer has never verified), while also digging deep into Hammer’s troubled family history. (He is the great-grandson of oil tycoon Armand Hammer.)
Hammer’s team has not responded to any of the allegations in “House of Hammer.” An attorney for the actor declined to comment on the docuseries when contacted by Variety.
“Alright, buckle your seatbelt. This is going to be the bet. If I won, I get to come over to your house with my bag of goodies,” Hammer’s voice is heard saying in the series, in an alleged voice message. “My bet was going to involve showing up to your place and completely tying you up and incapacitating you and then being able to do whatever I wanted to every single hole in your body until I was done.”
“I decide when you eat, when you sleep,” an alleged text read from Hammer, as show on-screen. Hammer appeared to often call his sexual partners “kitten” and in one message allegedly referred to a woman as, “My own personal little slave.”
“You are mine! You hear me? I own you now. I’ll own you forever,” another unverified text of Hammer’s read.
Julia Morrison, an artist who says she was contacted by Hammer on Instagram, appears on-camera in the docuseries to share some of the messages she says she received from the actor.
“I have a fantasy about having someone prove their love and devotion and tying them up in a public place at night and making their body free use…And seeing if they will fuck strangers for me,” Morrison read aloud, reading her texts.
In another text, Morrison stated that Hammer wrote, “You don’t think or worry about anything except being a good little pet. My own personal little slave… in return you will be worshipped, fed and fucked.”
Courtney Vucekovich says she met Hammer at a bar in 2019. The next morning, she says he added her on Instagram. A few months later, Hammer messaged her on the social media app, beginning a series of daily calls and texts. Vucekovich explains that she and Hammer had grown very close from communicating regularly and would share their trauma with one another, which formed a deep connection. She says Hammer was “love bombing” her and she believed it.
Before they had ever met in-person, Vucekovich says Hammer showed up at her apartment in Dallas, Texas and sent her a photo of the building. This came after he called her 22 times in a row, she claims. “LEAVE,” Vucekovich texted Hammer in all caps. “WHY ARE YOU THERE,” she wrote. She claims Hammer responded, “Trying to find your scent.”
“I remember being like, ‘Are we flirting? Or is this scary?’” Vucekovich says on-camera.
Hammer then sent her photos of the entrance of her building and texted, “I’m going in. Nothing you can do to stop me.” He left her a note. When she opened the envelope, it read, “I am going to bite the fuck out of you” with his signature.
“I didn’t know how to feel about the note,” Vucekovich said. “I took it metaphorically, not literally. I just thought he wanted intimacy and closeness and wanted us to be together, so I chose to look at it as more flattering than concerning. When I told my friends about us talking, I left that part out. I think that says a lot.”
Vucekovich, who is the main accuser in “House of Hammer,” claims that Hammer tracked her location on his phone. One day, when she was on a walk with a friend, Hammer showed up on his scooter, she says.
“I fell right back into it,” Vucekovich admits. “I thought it was romantic. I thought, ‘He’s fighting for me.’”
Vucekovich says she had tried to break things off with Hammer, but he didn’t want to leave her alone, and she fell back into the relationship.
“When you really care for somebody, it’s kind of crazy what your mind is willing to look past or justify,” she explains. “But then there are these things that keep happening… I would have hand marks that would stay on my body.”
“He bites really hard,” Vucekovich says on-camera, showing an image of a bite mark on skin that she says she believes was photographed by Hammer.
“He tells you to wear them like a badge of honor,” she says. “Almost like he convinced me that I’m lucky to have it. As fucked up as it sounds, at that time, I was interpreting that as love. Looking at it now, makes me sick. He pushes your boundaries a little bit at a time.”
Throughout the various alleged texts shown on-screen, Hammer’s graphic messages occasionally disclose fantasies to the women he’s communicating with.
“I want to bite you and leave a mark and then have that mark turned into a tattoo,” one alleged text read from Hammer. “Brand you, tattoo you, mark you, shave your head and keep your hair with me, cut a piece of your skin off and make you cook it for me.”
Vucekovich says that Hammer convinced her to engage in BDSM activity, though she felt unsafe.
“He told me he’s only ever tied up mannequins, never people. He wants to share this with me — this fantasy, this experience, something new that he’s never tried with anybody,” Vucekovich explains. She recalls that in an effort to get out of the situation, she told Hammer she did not feel well. He became enraged, she says. “I was like, ‘How do I get out of this?’”
“He was drunk. I was not. I didn’t say no. I said I didn’t feel good. I said everything except ‘no,’” Vucekovich says, as she goes into detail of a harrowing scene. She says Hammer put on a “creepy playlist” and put ropes on her wrists, neck, ankles and behind her back. “I had bruises. I hated it. I understand that if this is your fantasy or your thing — more power to you — but I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel loved. It was horrible. You feel completely immobilized. There’s something about trauma while you’re immobilized and can’t move. There’s that fight-and-flight and you can’t do either. You’re just stuck there. I was closing my eyes until it ended and he just went to sleep like it was nothing.”
Vucekovich shares with producers that she had written in her journal after that incident that Hammer wanted “control” and “compliance.”
One of the most shocking messages appears to show Hammer stating that he cut the heart out of an animal and ate it.
“I’ve cut the heart out of a living animal before and eaten it while still warm,” Hammer’s alleged text said. “Totally raw. Still warm… I’d eat your heart if I wasn’t stuck without you after.”
In another text, he allegedly wrote, “I am 100% a cannibal… fuck that’s scary to admit.”
Another one of his messages allegedly says, “I need your blood. I crave it.”
And in another: “I want to see everything… I want to see your brain, your blood, your organs, every part of you… I would definitely bite it … 100%… or try to fuck it. Not sure which… probably both.”
“You were the most intense and extreme version of that I’ve ever had. Raping you on your floor with a knife against you. Everything else seemed boring,” one text read, which was allegedly written by Hammer to the woman behind the anonymous social media account, House of Effie. This woman, known as Effie, accused Hammer of rape during a press conference alongside her attorney, Gloria Allred. It became the basis for an LAPD sexual assault investigation into Hammer.
“You crying and screaming, me standing over you. I felt like a god,” the alleged text read. “I’ve never felt such power or intensity.”
“I’m not gonna lie,” Hammer wrote in another alleged message. “You crying and crawling away while I stalked you down your hallway was so exhilarating.”
The actor’s aunt, Casey Hammer, who is estranged from the family, serves as a consultant on “House of Hammer.” She appears on-camera in the docuseries and says she was not surprised when the scandal surrounding the actor surfaced.
Speaking about her wealthy family, she says, “On the outside we were a perfect family, but beneath it all was a dark world of deceit, betrayal and corruption. And that’s why I’m coming forward now. It’s time to stop the cycle.”
Speaking of her brother and the other men in the Hammer lineage, Casey Hammer says that Armie Hammer’s treatment of women stems from the other male figures in his life.
“That’s the sign of a true monster. You can look in the mirror and not see any aunt or that you’re doing anything wrong, and that’s how deep it goes with my brother, and that’s why it’s so scary because he has no conscious,” she says. “And now, it’s Armie.”
She continues, “Every generation in my family has been involved in dark misdeeds. And it just gets worse and worse. There is so much beneath the surface that is now finally coming to light.”
