The Armie Hammer Allegations Just Got Even Darker

Ever since various women came forward with serious allegations of physical and emotional abuse against Armie Hammer in late January (the actor categorically denies all claims) things have been eerily quiet — until now.

On March 11, Vanity Fair published a lengthy feature about the wild and chequered history of Hammer's family. Much of the article is about his family members' antics, but later on gets into the actor's life and his current scandal.

Following Hammer's divorce with his former wife, Elizabeth Chambers, in July 2020, he dated other women, including App creator Courtney Vucekovich and model Paige Lorenze. Both came forward in the beginning of 2021 with similar allegations that Hammer groomed and abused them, as well as threatened them with cannibalistic fantasies, during each of their respective relationships.

Even though we don't hear from Hammer himself in the article, it includes firsthand accounts from Vucekovich and Lorenze, as well his aunt Casey Hammer. Here are the most telling new details we learned.

Many of the claims against Armie state that he has a bondage kink (perfectly acceptable), but would often take it too far into non-consensual territory (unacceptable). The Vanity Fair piece mentions a few examples of interviews over the years in which he's professed his love of knots — namely "Playboy ('a man’s version of knitting'), Stephen Colbert (whom he challenged to a knot-tying contest on The Late Show), and InStyle ('I’ve never admitted this before...sometimes I carry a rope to practice knots')."

When Armie wasn't on set, a source close to his wife said that he would "throw himself into hobbies with great intensity," and a few years ago introduced Chambers to the Japanese bondage art form shibari. "Elizabeth tried to be supportive of the new interest, which Armie allegedly indulged by buying mannequins and inventing elaborate knots," the piece reads. "Elizabeth even tried to find a lucrative spin on the obsession: 'She suggested he write a book about a hobby called Why Knot?' laughed the friend."

According to Chambers' friend, Armie confessed to his wife that he had cheated on her right after their son was born in 2017, but that it was a one-time thing. A few years later, however, the friend claimed that Chambers found evidence of an affair he husband was having with a costar. "The Hammers had been in expensive family therapy, but, to Elizabeth, the indiscretions—and more notably his decision to flee the family during a global pandemic—were the final straw," the friend claimed. "When Armie touched down in the U.S., he mistakenly sent a raunchy text message meant for someone else to his estranged spouse. Elizabeth filed for divorce shortly after."

According to some friends of the family, Armie's rowdy behaviour after his breakup was similar to that of his father. Two people claimed that Armie "suddenly [got] more than five tattoos in a matter of months — including an outline of the Caymans above his knee; a heart that was inked by the in-house tattoo artist at Kaia Gerber’s birthday party to match two teenage boys’; the letters 'E.G.B.A.,' standing for 'Everything’s gonna be alright'; and the word 'chaos' because he wants his life to be chaos."

While Lorenze and Armie were dating in September 2020, she was invited to Texas to meet her boyfriend's mother. "His mother spoke of 'the devil trying to take' Armie, and she worried that he didn’t believe in God." Dru wouldn't let to two sleep in the same bedroom and immediately grilled Lorenze about her religious beliefs. "I’ve never been to such a Christian household," Lorenze said.

A few days into the trip, Lorenze said that Dru confided in her “about how she was so worried about Armie and so grateful for me because she felt like I was a good influence on him," the model said. "And that she just wanted him to accept God back into his life. And that he had just been fighting everything for a long time.”

Lorenze alleges she ended her relationship with Armie a few months later due to his highly controlling tendencies, as well as physical and emotional abuse. "I just started to feel really unsafe and really sick to my stomach about things," she said. “I was also emotionally dependent on him.” She continued, "You never know what you’re going to get with him—he’s kind of a scary person.”

Chambers is still spending time in the Cayman Islands with her and her ex's two children while the divorce is being settled. However, some who have been close to the powerful Hammer family have expressed concern for her as he continues to fight for her children. "I want to tell her to be careful,” a person once close to the family said. “I hope she can just get off that island soon.”

"Elizabeth has told friends that while she is fearful herself, she is projecting strength for the kids and trying to find occasional humour in the darkness," writes the article's author, Julie Miller. "She's been joking to friends that the only thing that makes sense to her, looking back on her marriage, is the Netflix movie starring Zac Efron as Ted Bundy — 'Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile." Bundy, the serial killer and rapist who was executed on death row for the murder more than 30 young women in the 1970s, was notorious for exhibiting charm and wit.