Woman Who Accused Armie Hammer of Rape Says New Docuseries Exploits Her Trauma: ‘They Remind Me of Armie’

The woman, who goes by Effie, has accused Hammer of "violently" raping her for four hours. The LAPD has been investigating the allegation since March 2021.

By Kylie Cheung | September 2, 2022 | 9:15pm

Entertainment

Woman Who Accused Armie Hammer of Rape Says New Docuseries Exploits Her Trauma: ‘They Remind Me of Armie’

While several women have accused Armie Hammer of emotional abuse, coercion, etc., only one woman—who goes by the name “Effie,” but conceals her last name—has accused Hammer of rape. Effie’s allegation that Hammer “violently raped” her for four hours in April 2017, first made public in March 2021, prompted an ongoing investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department. Now, following the Friday release of House of Hammer—a new Discovery+ docuseries about the allegations against Hammer and other men in his family—Effie has accused the three-part series of re-victimizing her for profit.

“The way they’ve been exploiting my trauma is disgusting,” Effie said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times on Friday. “When I keep screaming ‘no’ and they keep going, saying they don’t need my permission, they remind me of Armie.”

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Effie told the Times that a month after she went public with her allegation against Hammer, a producer for House of Hammer contacted her to ask her to be interviewed for the docuseries. She told the newspaper that she declined, telling the producer: “It is extremely inappropriate of you to exploit such a tragic, vulnerable time in many people’s lives, with no regard whatsoever for our healing process and privacy.” Despite Effie’s refusal to participate, the docuseries has included screenshots and posts Effie shared to her Instagram account, as well as clips from her 2021 press conference in which she recounted the rape through tears.

In an interview with the Times, filmmakers Elli Hakami and Julian Hobbs, who made House of Hammer, acknowledged Effie’s perspective, but defended their choice to include her story in the docuseries. “She has a right to do what she wants to do. The people who are participants in the film are very proud of the work that they’ve done in it. They’re doing press for it. For them, it was a good experience,” Hobbs told the newspaper. “[Effie]‘s been vocal that she thinks that making any form of media out of these events is somewhat problematic. As filmmakers, we don’t take that view. We feel we actually have an obligation to tell the stories.”

Hobbs continued, “If you were to stop making films because someone said they didn’t want a film being made, you would never make a film. The reality is not everyone gets on board films.”

While Effie didn’t participate in House of Hammer, her lawyer, Gloria Allred, was interviewed for the production—something Effie told the Times that Allred didn’t consult her about. Allred told the newspaper that she couldn’t specifically speak to Effie’s claim because of attorney-client privilege, but said in an email to the outlet that “statements that I have made on behalf of clients have been made because the statements were consistent with our representation, were authorized either explicitly or implicitly, and were made because I believed that the statements were in the client’s best interests.”

Only two women who say they dated and were pressured and abused by Hammer participated in the docuseries: Courtney Vucekovich and Julia Morrison, who allegedly messaged with Hammer but never met him in-person. Hobbs and Hakami explained that the inclusion of only these two women, in addition to Hammer’s aunt Casey Hammer, who says she was sexually abused by her father (Hammer’s great-uncle), was because—in Hakami’s words—they had “to be convinced that [the victims were] ready to speak.”

“When we spoke to Casey and Courtney, we had many, many conversations with them at length. And we recognized that they were in a place where they were ready to share their stories in a way that was going to be empowering and not regressive to them,” Hakami said. “We wanted it to be cathartic, empowering and not something that’s going to be detrimental.” Hobbs added that they extensively “vetted” people who came forward and declined to interview women whose claims they couldn’t back up.

In House of Hammer, allegations against Hammer, including extensive interviews with Vucekovich and Morrison, are a launching point into unpacking his family’s long history of scandals and alleged abuse. Hammer is the great-grandson of the late, ultra-wealthy oil tycoon Armand Hammer.

Hammer has previously denied that any aspects of his sexual relationships were nonconsensual, and he denied the rape allegation. His lawyer, Andrew Brettler, has previously denied Effie’s rape allegation and said in 2021 that Hammer’s interactions with Effie “and every other sexual partner of his for that matter” were “completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory.”

Effie and her attorney, Allred, did not immediately respond to Jezebel’s requests for comment.