Actor Armie Hammer reportedly in rehab amid sex scandal

Embattled actor Armie Hammer reportedly in rehab for substance abuse and sex issues

June 9, 2021 12:42 PM PT

Armie Hammer, the actor who has been under investigation by the LAPD’s sex crimes division, has reportedly entered a rehab facility in Florida where he is addressing issues related to drugs, alcohol and sex.

The 34-year-old got on a plane May 29 on Grand Cayman, three sources told Vanity Fair, with a witness saying on social media that he was dropped off by estranged wife Elizabeth Chambers and their two kids. He checked into an in-patient facility outside of Orlando two days later and has been there since, two sources told the magazine.

Chambers, who split from Hammer in July 2020 after a decade of marriage, has been living with their children in the Caymans so they could go to school during the pandemic. The “Call Me by Your Name” actor spent a chunk of his childhood living on the islands.

Hammer’s career fell apart swiftly starting in early January after an Instagram account, @houseofeffie, began publishing messages, allegedly from the actor, in which he detailed kinky sexual fantasies including rape, cannibalism and other violent acts.

The actor subsequently left the Jennifer Lopez movie “Shotgun Wedding,” saying in a statement, “[I]n light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic.” He was replaced by Josh Duhamel.

He also called the allegations “bull— claims” and said he was not responding to them.

Then two ex-girlfriends, Courtney Vucekovich and Paige Lorenze, spoke out in a similar vein about their alleged treatment by “The Social Network” actor. “He said to me he wants to break my rib and barbecue and eat it,” Vucekovich told Page Six in January. Lorenze showed the same outlet screen grabs in early February in which Hammer allegedly said he wanted to make her his “perfect little slave.”

A couple of weeks later, Chambers posted on Instagram: “For weeks, I’ve been trying to process everything that has transpired,” she wrote. “I am shocked, heartbroken, and devastated. Heartbreak aside, I am listening, and will continue to listen and educate myself on these delicate matters. I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know.”

Days later, Hammer was dropped by his agency, William Morris Endeavor. He also walked away from “The Offer,” an upcoming Paramount+ series about the making of “The Godfather.”

Then, on March 18, a 24-year-old woman identified as “Effie” — the same name used on the Instagram account that posted the original messages — appeared in a Zoom conference with attorney Gloria Allred and accused Hammer of “violently” raping her over the course of four hours in 2017.

Effie alleged that Hammer, whom she’d met via Facebook in 2016, had repeatedly banged her head against the wall, beat her feet with a riding crop and “committed other acts of violence” without her consent.

The Times confirmed the same day that Hammer was being investigated by the LAPD’s sex crimes division.

Through his lawyer, Andrew Brettler, Hammer has strongly denied all the allegations, noting that all of his sexual encounters have been “completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance and mutually participatory.”

Regarding the “Lone Ranger” star’s trip to rehab, a Hammer friend told Vanity Fair that people assumed the actor — who is the great-grandson of businessman and philanthropist Armand Hammer — had a “privileged life” where everything was “peachy keen.” But the outlet, which published a story in March about the family’s history, said many of the people its reporters had spoken to in recent months had alluded to unresolved trauma in Hammer’s life, as well as ongoing substance abuse.

“Just because you come from an upbringing where financial resources are plentiful doesn’t mean life isn’t without problems,” Hammer’s friend said.

However, Effie responded to the magazine after it published the rehab news Tuesday. “While I am glad that Armie is finally getting the help I begged him to get for so long,” she said in a statement, “this does not take away all of the immense pain and suffering he has caused me.”

Times staff writers Amy Kaufman and Richard Winton contributed to this report.