Last we heard from Armie Hammer, he was (pretty much) confirmed to be selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands, about two years after abuse, rape, and cannibal fetish allegations against him first began swirling. Now, on Wednesday, discovery+ has dropped the first official trailer for House of Hammer, an upcoming three-part docuseries about Hammer’s alleged misconduct, as well as an entire family history of abuse and shadiness tracing back to his great-grandfather oil magnate Armand Hammer, who ran Occidental Petroleum Corporation.
Despite this bird’s eye view of the Hammer family tree, obviously, the series will be zeroing in on the allegations against Hammer that first surfaced shortly after his wife Elizabeth Chambers filed for divorce in 2020. In the trailer, two of Hammer’s exes who have previously shared parts of their stories, Courtney Vucekovich and Julia Morrison, recount additional chilling tidbits.
Both Vucekovich and Morrison recall initially being love-bombed by Hammer and “perfect” relationships with him. “But then things changed. He pushes your boundaries a little bit at a time,” Vucekovich said. “You’re his, completely. I mean, he said, ‘I’m 100 percent a cannibal.’” Screenshots of texts from Hammer show him telling the women “I own you” in rapid succession of each other. He told them he would control what they eat, “when you cum,” and every aspect of their lives.
Morrison shares a voice memo from Hammer that states, “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.” She adds that cannibalism “was all he wanted to ever talk about.”
Eventually, both women recall increasingly controlling behaviors from Hammer and his proclivity for physical violence. By the summer of 2020, their voices would join a chorus of other women who formerly dated or had sexual relationships with Hammer, accusing him of acts ranging from emotional abuse and grooming to rape.
The trailer then cuts to his aunt, Casey Hammer: “When all of this came out about Armie, I was not shocked. You just don’t wake up and become this dark controller, abuser. This behavior is deep-rooted.” Casey has previously spoken to Vanity Fair for its 2021 exposé on Hammer and his family, which she compares to the dysfunctional clan at the heart of HBO’s Succession: “Magnify Succession a million times, and it was my family.” In a 2015 memoir, Casey accused Armie’s grandfather Julian of sexual abuse. At one point in the 1950s, the family was connected to Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.
Discovery+ first announced House of Hammer last summer, and the docuseries will begin streaming next month on Sept. 2. Hammer has previously denied that any aspects of his sexual relationships were nonconsensual, and he unilaterally denied the rape allegation.
In a statement, Jason Sarlanis, president of Warner Bros.’ crime and investigative content overseeing House of Hammer, says the allegations brought against Hammer in recent years “are just the tip of the iceberg” regarding what he plans to share on the disgraced actor. “This documentary provides an important platform for the incredibly courageous women who came forward to share their stories, and we hope their courage inspires others to continue meaningful conversations around abuse in our society.”