Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of The Hammer Family

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

You're sure to *devour* this week's episode analyzing four generations of wealthy men who, in our little opinion, represent a stunning example of how a powerful American family can resemble a cult. This week, Isa and Amanda are joined by a third co-host of sorts, true crime TikTokker and friend of the pod Lauren Skae (@thezenblonde), who's here to help tell the harrowing story of The Hammer Family, including actor Armie Hammer, who was exposed for a bunch of power-abusive behaviors. Sometimes murder-y, sometimes cannibal-y (allegedly!!!), this one is not for the faint of heart. To support Sounds Like A Cult on Patreon, keep up with our live show dates, see Isa's live comedy, buy a copy of Amanda's book Cultish, or visit our website, click here! Or follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @isaamedinaa @amanda_montell Thank you to our sponsors! Get free shipping on orders over $75 at SKIMS.com  Go to Zocdoc.com/CULT and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. Go to Kosas.com/CULT for 15% off your first purchase of $50 or more plus FREE shipping

With ZockDock, you can find amazing doctors and book appointments online. Go to zock.com slash cult and download the ZockDock app for free. Then find and book a top rated doctor today. That's zoc.com slash cult. ZockDock.com slash cult. Thank you to our sponsor Schims. Schims fits everybody and more best-selling essentials are available now at Schims.com. Plus get free shipping on orders over $75 all at skims.com.

After you place your order, be sure to let them know that we sent you. Select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the drop down mini that follows. Don't choose between wearing great makeup and taking care of your skin. Right now, Cosa's is offering our listeners 15% off your first purchase of $50 or more when you go to Cosa's.com slash cult. Go to kosas.com slash cult for 15 percent off your first purchase of $50 or more. Plus free shipping. That's kosas.com slash cult.

The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like A Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable facts. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. They tried to erase their connection to Russia, but at one point, Armin Hammer was the only person from the states that can land in Russia and China,

and he would be somewhere else in Europe here that Lenin passed away, be on the runway, fire up the jet again, get approval to Len in Russia, and he's getting a better seat than any US president because they didn, because they didn't want the U.S. presidents being shown on TV at that funeral. So there was stuff like that left right in the center. This family is cultier than we even thought.

This is Sounds Like A Cult. A show about the modern day cults, we all follow. I'm Amanda Montel, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. I'm Esa Medina, I'm a stand-up comedian, and you can catch my tour dates on my Instagram. Every week on our show, we discuss a different Zake Guasty group that puts the cult in culture, from celebrity mega-churches to theater kids, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult category does it fall into? Live your life, watch your back, or get the fuck out.

For our newest owners, a LIVE level cult is like a baby cult, definitely fanatical, but mostly harmless. A watch your back level cult is borderline dangerous, checks off some of the culty boxes that isn't totally destructive. And then we have a get the fuck out level cult, which is like, QAnon level, Mance and Vibes, aka one for your life. After all, what classifies a cult is up to interpretation. Alright, here we go.

Today we are talking about the cult of the Hammer family. So you might be familiar with this name because of Army Hammer who's a well-known actor. Some of his work includes Call Me By Your Name and the Social Network. In a couple years ago in early 2020, there were viral headlines accusing Army Hammer of being a cannibal and sexually abusing women. But those allegations are just the tip of the iceberg. This seems like a story about a handsome actor who was accused of sexual abuse on past partners, but it is really a story about an entire family, full of abuse and cult-like influence.

Today, RestrictionGer episode a little bit differently. We've invited a third co-host of sorts to join us, Lauren Skay, who helped expose the story of the Hammer family in 2020 and 2021 on TikTok, and was a key source in the Discovery Plus documentary House of Hammer, so good, which partially inspired this whole episode. Lauren knows the story inside and out and is going to help us tell it and then analyze

the cultiest aspects of the Hammer family, which affect not only its members, but also the public at large. For some setup, we're going to be talking about four generations of Hammers in this episode, all in relation to the present-day young actor, Army Hammer. So there's Army Hammer's father, Michael. There's Army Hammer's grandfather, Julian, and then there's the head, the patriarch of the family, the one who started it all, his great-grandfather, Armand Hammer, Julian, and then there's the head, the patriarch of the family, the one who started it all, his great grandfather, Armand Hammer, who of course, Army was named after. This podcast examines how the word cult can mean so many different things and show up in so many different ways.

And today's cult is fascinating because it isn't just about the hammers themselves. It's a bigger discussion about how too much money and power and ego in this country can turn a seemingly aspirational family into something more like a cult. If you're a fan of the show's succession, parts of the story are going to sound eerily familiar. This is a story involving branding, abuse, murder, money, politics. Oh, God. We're going to have Lauren summarize the background and then get into analyzing the cultiest qualities

of the Hammer family. The tea is piping hot and it tastes like human flesh. Lauren, can you please introduce yourself to our listeners? Oh, hi, guys. My name is Lauren Skay. I'm also known on social media as ZenBlond. You may know me from everything that went down with Army Hammer, which is why I guess the tea tastes like human flesh,

which is just such a, oh my God, such a visual, like almost like, ooh, a multi-sensory. Multi-sensory for sure. You've already told us so many of these stories. That's why we wanted to sit down with you in person to flesh it out, but you once described it as succession vibes. What the shit out there?

I can't. Yeah, I know, well, it's really so multi-generational and it feels like it's still ongoing. I mean, stuff is still happening. So it's crazy that nobody's uncovered this before, and that we're just hearing about it now, and it makes you wonder how many other hammer families there are out there. But yeah, I'm super excited to be here chatting with you all about it today. We are just jazzed-by on reason to have you here, to discuss this with us, because I first became

familiar with you and your work and your connection to the Hammer family, your exposure of them. When I watched the Hammer documentary on Discovery Plus, I subscribed to Discovery Plus for a month just to watch Best $5 ever spent. Can you set up how you were involved with the documentary a little bit? Because it's a fantastic docu-series. So it's called House of Hammer on Discovery Plus.

You can subscribe for a month for $5. So how this all unfolded was obviously, I mean, deep pandemic, we were all seeing the crazy social media storm regarding the allegations that came out about Army Hammer. And it's not just like, there's obviously a lot of allegations regarding people in Hollywood abusing their power

and assaulting women and stuff like that, but this was on a completely different level because there were these like cannibalistic texts that were just like driving it to a new level of fucked up that we were all just like what the actual hell. And so it caught my attention, but I was also just like kind of like disturbed by it. And you know, you go around LA and you see Hammer on a lot of different like flag posts because there's a Hammer Museum. So a friend of mine, Caitlin, was on Reddit and she knew I was doing a bunch of TikTok stuff and she's like, hey, like, you know, on the Army Hammer Reddit thread, people are saying that his aunt has a book and I found the book, it's called Surviving My Birthright, by Casey Hammer.

You can buy it on I think Amazon, great book and honestly the documentary didn't get half the shit in it. How could it? There's so much. I was surprised it was only three parts. I was like, this could have been like a 10-part documentary. I know, if the vow was two seasons. Yeah.

Hours and hours of footage. But I do appreciate that about a true crime documentary series when it keeps it really tight, because the intrigue remains. And the family runs so deep, and that's something that like shocked me about the documentary, which I love that when the documentary is so juicy, just when you think it can't get worse, it does. But let's start from the beginning. What I remember is that the reason it all started was kind of because of the rumors

about army hammer specifically, right? And then you kind of looked into the research started with him and slowly trickled down through the family. So what did you find out about Army Hammer? Is he a carnivore? A carnivore is you. I don't carnivore. Yeah, so I think these allegations of cannibalism made for such sensational headlines, and it's kind of wild that those headlines really were just a scratch on the surface. These headlines were basically claiming that Army Hammer was exchanging text messages

with various women that implied that he wanted to eat their ribs. It was all just like very salacious. Can you sort of speak to how those allegations of cannibalism were really just the tip of the iceberg and how you started to dive under the surface and discover more? Yeah, absolutely.

So just like all of you, I was horrified by the headlines. And I don't know if you remember, Pageler ends one of his alleged victims. So she's one of the women that came forward with accusations against Army that are more specifically. And she actually had a photo of an A that he carved into her pelvis. So obviously, who knows how much further army

would have gone if left unchecked, but obviously these things started coming out. Then I found Casey's book, and I delved into Casey's book, and then you realized this is a multi-generational thing like not only was Army Hammer doing these things presently as a famous actor, but then it was alleged that Army's father had a sex throne and it was actually written up in a vanity fair article. Then Army's grandfather was known as the Hugh Hefner of

Pacific Palisades and he had a whole throng of stories about him, and then before Army's grandfather, Army's great-grandfather, Armand Hammer, an industrialist, an oil tycoon who owned Occidental Petroleum, had his own crazy, just list of things that you wouldn't believe, and for this to even be one person in a family to see, you know, all these generations of men having this behavior around them was just mind blowing. That is the detail. You know, once the family tree started to become exposed,

because, you know, one person abusing their power in a certain way can be culty. But when the tentacles reach so far and so deep, you start to realize like there are so many different layers to this cult that kind of touch the whole public. And the way that they all function as individuals is highly influenced by the way that their family is structured. Because they come from a wealthy family,

there are a lot of power dynamics that affect, for example, who got hold of the business, who got the money passed down to them, and who was the favorite grandchild, which was Army Hammer. And so the thing that is so powerful about this family and cult like is that the effect that they all have on each other, it's powered by money, it's powered by social influence,

it's powered also by the power dynamics of accepting toxic behavior from your family. And if you're one of the family members who's not going to accept the toxic behavior, you might be ostracized. Absolutely. So Casey Hammer, who would be Army's aunt, you know, when I found her book, she was working at Home Depot. And then you had the juxtaposition of her brother who inherited everything. And he was living in multiple homes, driving roles, voices, and living the high life, owning a school, funneling his money into various Christian organizations. So he really tied himself to a high level of Christianity,

evangelical type stuff, and used that as a smoke screen to kind of hide his bad behavior. Where does the throne begin, I guess, like with the hammer family? It's with Army's grandfather, right? Yeah, so it begins with Arm and Hammer. So he's the oil industrialist. So what happened with him was he was becoming a doctor.

And his father was a doctor. They were from Russia. They were living in New York. He performed an abortion on a Russian Zara's wife and she died. And instead of him going to jail, which would have been a much longer sentence as a medical student performing an illegal abortion, his father took the fall and went to sing-sing for a few years and said that he was the one giving the abortion. So then young Armin Hammer took all the supplies from his father's medical practice and sold it to Russia. Then Lenin let him go into the hermitage

and pick a few paintings as payment. That started a very long history with Russia. Then what he did was he went and he married a wealthy woman and bought oxen and a petroleum. And the entire time while he was running oxen and a petroleum, he also had a mistress. And at one point, his wife found out about the mistress. And instead of, you know,

either divorcing the wife and going with the mistress or breaking up with the mistress, he made her change her name and appearance and gave her a new role at the company and continued on the relationship with her. Who knows if this was the original seed, but as far as we know, that really planted the seed for a long, long history of power

dynamics with women and treating women as objects. Yeah. And so much political stuff on the Russian side in addition to the US side because actually Armin Hammer partially funded Watergate and was partened by George Bush senior. So you know how like sometimes you hear people talk about how their parents were divorced and that like affected them so deeply or like their dad cheated on their mom and it's like this grandfather established a legacy

in his family that he not only had a mistress and it was well known because he needed to have access to like other women, but it was accepted by the family. It was known by everyone, but he also established a legacy of being involved in bad business and bad business practices. And so when you see it trickle down on his family, you really see how that affected everyone.

Armin Hammer was involved in so many different things, and one of the big things that the documentary covered was Piper Alpha, where I think it was 86 people lost their lives. Basically, it was an oil rig explosion, and it was definitely preventable, and so it was a huge PR crisis. So Armin Hammer flew out to England,

met with Charles and Diana, and his basically right-hand man who was writing books about him that he was approving and just creating the narrative for that were not the actual reality of what was really going on. He was like, what should I do? He's like, act super sympathetic, act super remorseful. The day goes as planned and he looks super remorseful and sad and then he gets onto the

plane and he's like, caviar and champagne for everyone. That went great. Meanwhile, like, he had just been like, pretending to be remorseful with Charles and Diana. Expressing regret over these lives lost. It's truly a scene out of succession. Absolutely. And so this was the great grandfather.

Then you get down to army's grandfather who was Julian Hammers. Julian Hammers. So this is also Casey Hammer's father. So she talks a lot about him in her book. And so essentially Julian Hammer was the stain on his father, Arm and Hammer's reputation. And he actually had a paternity test done to see if Julian

was really his son. But Julian knew that to get his father's attention, he had to behave badly. So he had a giant bowl of cocaine at the front of his house, like it was just crazy. And he was known as the Hugh Haffner of Pacific Palisades. He had this giant totem pole with red glowing eyes outside of his house.

And there was just always all sorts of stuff going on. There was a story that the documentary didn't get, which was, Casey was about nine years old. She gets a phone call, very strange phone call from her dad's ex-girlfriend. They go out to this Mexican restaurant to eat. They come back, they get into their garage, and everything just looks disheveled. They go into the house, they go separate ways. Casey gets up to her bedroom door, and she sees her stuffed animal, and it's decapitated.

And literally, it's got lighter fluid on it. She looks up. And there's somebody wearing a sheet, like a ghost with lipstick smeared on their lips and a sombrero with a butcher's knife in their hand. And it starts chasing her through the home. Turns out her dad's ex-girlfriend and like five, like, methed out, like, just on lots of drugs people,

went into the house to ransack it and then held her dad hostage for hours. And she escaped to the neighbors. When police finally got a hold of the dad's girlfriend, she started to escape and Casey actually alerted the police and was like, she's getting away. And, you know, so I mean, I do remember what did make the documentary is like, this is just one of many stories of her childhood where she clearly had an abusive parent

or an unfit parent who wasn't stable or present or able to nurture her in any way whatsoever. Can you explain why Julian, army's grandfather, son of Armond, is great, great, great grandfather? Can you explain why he was this stain on the family, why his father didn't love him as much as he should have? So instead of becoming like a business magnet,

like his father, he, you know, was getting super fucked up and going out in public, like shit faced or, you know, doing all sorts of... Rich kid shit. So basically he was behaving badly, which could be a good thing for this family, but he was being too sloppy about it. Now that we've talked about Armand Hammer,

the great grandfather, Julian Hammer, the grandfather, we're not talking about Michael Hammer, army's dad. How did he deal with the family? When Julian divorced Kasey and Michael's mom, Michael was left with his father, Julian, army himmer's grandfather, and Kasey went with her mother. So Michael, you know, definitely dealt with Julian father, Julian, Army Hammer's grandfather. And Casey went with her mother. So, Michael definitely dealt with Julian's antics and obviously him having these crazy drug-fueled parties constantly. From what I understand, Michael became a bit of a partier himself in college.

But then, his father was obviously the weak link. Julian Hammer was the weak link. Armand Hammer had all the money. He was the industrialist. He was getting older. When Armand Hammer was getting close to passing away, obviously there were a lot of people in the family looking to get that back, if you know what I mean. So Julian Hammer obviously had a very bad issue with drugs and alcohol and all sorts of things, so he wasn't looking like a pretty good option for Armand Hammer to give the money to. Michael Hammer kind of cleaned up his act and he was really gunning for that money. So Casey Hammer went to Armin Hammer's bedside as he was kind of declining and Armin said that she would get $250,000 a year through oxygen and all petroleum and beyond the payroll with all the benefits. She would be

getting a lump sum inheritance that would probably be tied up in litigation over the trust. And then that there was money in Swiss accounts. She would access and the lawyer would liaise her accessing that money. So Armin Hammer passes away. And as he passes away, Casey's brother Michael, army's father, gets five moving trucks. And while Armin Hammer is still warm in his bed just passed away, he starts loading up those trucks with things from Armin's house. Now, this is documented. Five of the trucks were there, one got away, four were intercepted.

But like, one truck from that house could be like a fucking Picasso, you know what I mean? So it's like, you know, who knows what was made away with, right? So anyway, Casey goes to the reading of the will and she's anticipating that the will is going to reflect the conversation she had with her grandfather. But when the will is read, everything is left to her brother Michael and he lets out a sinister smile. And apparently years later, Michael said to Casey's mother that he was doing

this to harm his father, Julian, and that Casey was collateral damage. So, you know, it's one of those things where he really hated his father, I think, for what he went through, but I think he also really wanted the money that, you know, was at stake. And Casey just fell to the wayside and was left out of it. And again, women in this family are second-class citizens. Women are not viewed as human in the same way, and that is also part of the reason why if you're a woman outside of the family, you're going to be treated as an object. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

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Well, here's the weirdest thing, right? Michael, army's father has this sex thrown in Santa Barbara with the hammer in Signea. It's like, so there's a chair, right? A giant seat with the hammer in Signea on it. There's a cage underneath it. This is a seven foot tall sex throne Jesus. And a hole in the seat. And honestly, it horrifies me to even wonder what you do with such an object. But there's a hook in the cage. It's a very, very weird thing to have, right? And it's a tough thing to talk about as well

because there are kink communities, dominatrix communities that do have some, you know, pretty edgy looking props. And from what I understand, army did hide behind, oh, this is just my kink. This is a fetish in order to get away with so much. And perhaps his father did the same thing, but consent is a huge part of kink and consent was not a huge part of their doings. So anyway, the sex throne. The BDSM community is super against what went down with all the situation because consent is a huge part

and they don't wanna be painted as like this non-consensual thing. So Michael Hammer had this insane sex throne and we were asking how do you think army hammer came to be, I assume, by the influence of his own father? Well, you wonder, right? Okay, your dad has a sex throne, that's pretty specific,

but then you have all these graphic text messages. Like, is there, is it biological? Is there an attitude that is expressed towards women that nature versus nurture? Exactly. Like, I don't, I don't even know the answer to that. I would think, obviously, this is just my opinion, but I don't think that you can blame nature that much,

because there are a lot of people that grow up with toxic parents or influences, and they don't go on to abuse others. And I think especially when you have the resources at your disposal to seek therapy and seek help, then for Army Hammer to be like, oh my dad was abusive, so I was abusive. It's like therapy my dad.

I like the Hammer family story really does inspire army hammer to be like, oh my dad was abusive, so I was abusive. It's like therapy my dad. The hammer family story really does inspire a fascinating conversation about nature and nurture, and I agree I, you know, we can get into all conversations about free will if we want to, but I think that the amount of wealth that exists in that family is extremely corrosive and not natural for a human spirit and especially when combined with patriarchy and so if you grow up in an environment where you have all the caviar in the world and the most beautiful women in the world, what is their left to aspire to? Humans are naturally, you know, very aspirational. It's like, what is there left? There's human flesh question mark. Yeah, and that's like, that's their sex drive. I mean, an example of that with like other rich people is like, why do they get a million cars? Because they already have had every

other car in the world. And so they're seeking that high from a new purchase. And so it does in a non-okay way make weird, backward sense that this man who has had every woman in the world would want a woman in a different way. You always just want what's next. It's like, there's no more fog left. What can I eat now? Yeah. Whether or not he was actually eating people,

it's a metaphor. I mean, I was even seeing somebody post about the menu in Noma, you know, and you know that movie, The Menu, just came out. And it's like, at a certain point, it's just like people are going to get small plates of really weird shit. And like, talking, it's so oceanic.

It's so funny that we always end up talking about capitalism in this podcast. Here I go, strap in, But I'll just wrap that up. I think, yeah, strap on, strap in, whatever your heart desires. But I think it's funny because it's this like self-feeding machine where the rich hold on to their money so that then they can buy more insane things

and see happiness in more insane ways. Whereas like if you just didn't keep all that money to yourself and you had less money, then you wouldn't be able to afford all of those things and you would find happiness in simpler things. Well, we, I mean, there's all that research that shows that past a certain financial bracket, money will not bring you happiness. It's $120,000, but with inflation, I did the math. I did the math recently.

If I want to live alone, it's $200,000, but with inflation, I did the math. I did the math recently. If I want to live alone, it's $200,000. Honestly, I mean, what I think is so fascinating about the timing of those army hammer, like cannibalism allegations making headlines is that, whether, I don't know if it was a coincidence or not, but it really set off a year or two of cannibalism content in the media. We had that movie fresh.

We had the yellow jackets cannibalism content in the media. We had that movie fresh. We had the yellow jackets cannibalism plotline. We had the film bones and all starring Armies, former co-star Timmy Chalamet. And I, whoa, I don't weird. I totally didn't realize that it's like directed by the shadowing. Timmy Lee Chalamet. Look at Guadagnino.

But all I wanna say is like, 2022 seemed like a year to me. When so many movies and TV shows that I was watching were either about cannibalism or had themes of eat the rich. So true. Like the menu and glass onion. And what that says to me is like, we're in a cultural moment where we are starved

for something and that is being depicted in many ways. Either we're like eating the rich metaphorically or we're on the fringes of society eating actual people. Like, we need nourishment right now. And that is part of why I think this hammer story is resonating so deeply. 100%. And the other thing is, it's such a tangled web.

You know, there's not one element of it that, like, it's like, okay, like this is the loop of like they were just messed up towards women. It's something that keeps popping up for me as a theme is the power of a persona and the power of like a personality to have influence over people, not just because of their connections and their finance, but because of like the aura and the mystique around them, their charisma. Yeah. And so that's something you saw with Army Hammer's great-grandfather. His grandfather was kind of like a drug you shit head, but then his father, Michael, restarted and reignited that charismatic leader vibe of like,

I want the inheritance. I'm going to restart the company. I'm going to marry a Christian woman, and I'm going to have the perfect son, and he he's gonna be the next heir of the Hammer family. So it feels almost like Army Hammer had all this pressure on him to like become the next cult leader, cult leader of the family. Yeah, well, I mean, I would say that, you know, I know somebody that met Michael Hammer out in Palm Springs and he was not happy that his son was an actor. He was not like excited about that. But one of the crazy things, it really one of the crazy veins of this family was that Michael Hammer decided to become

an evangelical Christian. Because his wife was super religious and they really didn't grow up with that kind of religion, right? So nobody was supposed to be named Armond, other than the oil and dust realist, Armin Hammer. Army Hammer's name is Armin Hammer. So what happened was he did that on purpose. They did. His name was like Alexander. And then the father of army's mother who was super evangelical at the hospital after they named him Alexander. Droped to his knees and said that God spoke to him and his

name was supposed to be Armined. So they renamed him Armand. There you go when you have a direct line to God, you are claiming Prophet status that's cult leadership 101. You know what it really is too, is they were chameleons. Armand Hammer, if you said I am Hindu, would be like I'm Hindu too. So anywhere he went, he would change his religion based on the people he was around. If you were a wasp, he was a wasp. If you were Jewish, he was Jewish. This is a very, very underrated ingredient

in the recipe of charisma. People think that charisma is just your ability to stand on a pulpit and magnetize people. But in part, charisma is actually your ability to make other people feel special and seen. 100% because he knew how to mirror people in order to make them feel at ease. And so essentially what is happening is at his funeral,

there were all these famous rabbis there because he was going to get armats. So finally, at the end of his life, Army Hammer's maternal grandfather, the super Christian guy who named him Army, gets up at the funeral in front of all these people and claims that Armand Hammer accepted Jesus on his death bed. So it's just funny because there's all, there's this weird vein of like cults coming into the cults. Yes. That makes sense.

And a lot of Armand's money was funneled into Jesus for Jesus and all these Christian organizations. But you know, the great grandfather, Armand Hammer, he was asked by Casey, oh, why wouldn't you become a president, Grandpa? And he said, because there's not enough power in it. So there's a combination of a huge thirst for power and then being the puppet master of everyone around you, because if you don't follow the rules of this cult, you get and

cut off from the money, kid. I'd love to know how Army Hammer rebranded the cultishness of the Hammer family and how that might have led to their exposure. Oh my gosh, well, Army Hammer committed the cardinal sin of any wealthy family, which is, I've heard people dispute this, but the limelight is kind of frowned upon. I know some super rich people

that don't even put their fucking vacations on Instagram. Right, you know? So I really always struggle with that. And I'm like, should I post a photo dump or not? And then I'm like, I paid a lot for this vacation. Everybody needs to see it. And that's because you're a future billionaire. And by future billionaire, you mean current poor person.

And you know, nobody is doing digging on a random industrialist that people have kind of forgotten about, but the second you attach some level of celebrity to it and the celebrity who is dating people like rumor willis. And in a bunch of prominent movies that somehow flopped, people are going to start digging and people are going to start making the connection. Also once you attach, honestly, any sort of slight scandal, that's going to pull the threat. So if he had just been a nice guy and just gone out on

dates with girls and been normal and been a normal nice guy, we might not have dug into him. But he's a hammer. He is. And he didn't fully hide it because his great grandfather has like a park in LA and he did do an interview there. So he didn't fully hide it. But at the same time, my friend was in an acting class with him for years and he was actually featured in the documentary, his name is Ryan Bailey. And Army had this really nice house and Army would act like he was couch surfing

on a friend's couch, but it was his family's home. You are not even thinking the concern here is that he was hiding his wealth because, you know, even when people pretend to be poor, you can tell that they come from money. But I think something that was a red flag for me was when I found out he had been married for a really long time. Army Hammer has an ex-wife and two children and that drew a very intense parallel to me to his great-grandfather who had a wife and then he had a mistress and then what

did his great-grandson do? He had a wife with kids and he had this perfect looking family, but at the same time, as soon as he got divorced, he started getting into these very toxic, like abusive relationships. And it seems like it was probably happening all along. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there was a trail of people,

there are people that haven't come out publicly. And, you know, I think obviously things were going on before, during, after. And now it's just like, we've seen such a strange sort of progression from there where it's like he was cosplaying like a normal dude working at a time share place. And Grand Cayman, we all saw that. And it's like, oh, really? They're paparazzi waiting outside your new little job as a time share person. Grand Cayman, we all saw that. And it's like, oh really, their paparazzi waiting outside your new little job as a time share person? Yeah.

It also feels like the reason he was able to play this role so well of this perfect man is because he is so conventionally attractive. I mean, as I was watching the documentary, the first episode, I was like, stop showing that angle of him. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, this man is good looking. And it's like, we are trained to trust good looking people.

And so he was wealthy, he was good looking, he's well connected, and all of a sudden, he also had fame. I see how it could be so easy for him. So I'd love to know about that thread being pulled that you were talking about. You were obviously part of the unraveling of this story. Can you talk a little bit about how the age old, generation's old story of the cult of the hammer

family finally blew up in their face? So I mean obviously everything was buzzing around army and these text messages with women and different things that were going on specifically with army. But when the paper trail flew back to the great grandfather, it was really honestly Casey Hammer who bravely published that book. And then I found it seven years later when all this was happening. And it put me at that center of, you know, social media storm. And I was like, oh my god, I put out a 13-part TikTok series and I was like, what just happened? And the next thing you know, I have a Vanity Fair writer calling me,

I have Good Morning America Reaching Out and it became this much bigger story. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ We've mentioned it already in this conversation and we've mentioned it several times on the podcast in the past. But we sometimes do talk about how certain power abusive families or toxic families themselves can mirror cults. What do you think about the hammer family made it a cult for the people in the family, including people who were not destined to become the next leader like Casey.

I think there were a number of factors. First of all, there was set of very clear rules that if you did not follow, you were getting kicked out, but you were kept very beholden by the manipulation and the money involved. Armin Hammer, the great grandfather learned Soviet, espionage, like mind control tactics. That was something that Casey had found out from a writer years later. And he was a master manipulator. So there was a lot of master manipulations going on.

In addition, the people from within the situation were insulated to a point where until they really broke out as adults, they didn't really realize what their experience was, what soap is are. Yeah, something that really stuck with me was, I mean, Casey's stories of her childhood, she thought that parties like that with like bowls of cocaine and people around all the time

in robes and things like that was normal. Robes are not normal. Robes are adults in robes naked underneath. Not normal, I can tell you that right now. But she thought it was normal until she broke out and fully went to go live with her mother. Yeah, I mean, Casey thought it was completely normal until really until she was an adult.

And I think got therapy and really unpacked everything. So I think the people within thought that it was normal. And then obviously, you know, you've set of these like, patriarchal leaders throughout these generations that like, I mean, it's like, I don't know, Kim Jong Il and then Kim Jong Un. You know what I mean? It's like, it's passed down between the men and they're all awful.

So obviously, the cult of the Hammer family has severe impacts on the people who are in it. They're terrified to leave. They have lasting effects that follow them, you know, for years and years to come. How do you think the cult of the Hammer family affects the general public, people on the outside? I mean, I think it opened up obviously a conversation, at least with the people who were observing

it, especially around consent in regards to the BDSM community. I think that was a big conversation, that was like a new conversation. I think like we've all had these conversations about wealthy families and about men who would be used their power and about people having good looks and being charming and deceiving people. But I think specifically the conversation around BBSM and consent was a really big one that I saw burgeoning from all of this.

But I think this story and many others that came out during the pandemic when we were all like More connected to our phones and computers and Reddit and Google than ever just looking for fodder for our minds Like I think during that time there was this really interesting Web sleuth thing that was going on and now like I even see it in the bravo community with the real housewives It's like everyone just has become an internet Bravo community with the real housewives. It's like everyone just has become an internet sleuth. And like everyone, if you decide you wanna be in the limelight,

make sure that your side of the street is clean because people are gonna start digging. I'm curious to know what you think are the cultiest aspects. Yeah, what do you think they are though? Well, I mean, I truly think that the cultiest aspect is how on the surface, this looks like an aspirational family. This, until recently, has looked like a family of people that you would want to be like in the United States. But when you look under the hood, there are these mind-blowing

horrifying allegations of abuse that are directly connected to the things that make this family aspirational. Well, and think about this. Okay. This family is an institution, right? Just like a cult. Yes. The hammer family is an institution.

They have foundations. They have the museum. They do all these charitable works. So from the outside looking in, you don't see anything wrong with it. Probably like people thought with the Sackler family, right? But ultimately, you know, Casey's grandfather, the great grandfather of Army Hammer, Armand Hammer, wanted to win a Nobel Peace Prize. He wanted, that was his main goals to win a Nobel Peace Prize. And he wanted, he would be quoted saying all this stuff about world peace,

but it was all a facade. And, you know, Army Hammer's father, Michael, he was the evangelist. He was donating to all of these evangelical causes, Jews for Jesus, oral Roberts University, all these different things, these religious causes, and that was the veneer on the outside. There was a completely different thing going on on the inside. And I actually spoke with a woman that had dinner with Michael Hammer, and she was like, he was wearing skulls and crossbones and all these things,

and she was pretty religious herself. And she was like, but was wearing skulls and crossbones and all these things and she was pretty religious herself. And she's like, but then he was over the top about his religion at the dinner. And she's like, it was just this weird deception. Yeah, and that's really what it is. It's like there's these causes and this religion and this art and these higher causes that are really just a smoke screen for bad behavior.

Totally. So we've covered it all from the great grandfather to the grandfather, to the father, to, even the Christian mother. You know, the father, the son, the Satan, the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost. This is like, I mean, we keep saying that like there's just so many aspects

and you know so much about this family, but starting with the great grandfather and working our way down, what do you think is the cultiest aspect with the great grandfather and working our way down, what do you think is the cultiest aspect of the great grandfather? I think an insatiable desire for power is probably the cultiest aspect of Armin Hammer. His goal was to win a Nobel Peace Prize. He said to Casey Hammer that he didn't want to be the president because there was enough

power in it. So I don't know what cult we would compare him to, but the desire for power and the wielding of money to keep people in a structure of rules that he has deemed appropriate. And then if you don't play by his rules, you're gonna be cut off. I mean, it's just the delusions of Grandeur

matched with the money to make a lot of those delusions possible. That's what makes the story pretty unique. Because most cult leaders don't have billions at their disposal. Yeah, like maybe instead of billions of dollars, it's, you know, some imaginary entity that, you know, they've convinced their following- Spiritual currency. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, like it kind of reminds me of if you're comparing it to like a normal American family, the power of that father or a mother holds is being able to hold the annual Thanksgiving dinner. And if you don't follow the rules or you aren't the way that the family wants you to be, then maybe you're uninvited from Christmas or you're uninvited from Thanksgiving. But Armand Hammer, the great grandfather, he had so much power that you could be uninvited from America. Yeah, literally. And you know, America had to use him to get into Russia.

Like this man was playing, you know, chess and the rest of us are playing checkers. But he had them train his family, trained like Pavlovian dogs because they would all line up before, you know, they would go to a Thanksgiving dinner where they're serving people. God ruling. So if dinner was at 5 p.m.,

they'd all be outside smoking cigarettes in their car, waiting for the clock to strike five. And then everyone wanted to be at the first at the door, but you didn't come any earlier and you didn't come any later than five. They also gave us. So he had everyone regimented like a cult leader almost. Yeah, and that's scary because his influences

go beyond the family and they go beyond money, something that money can't buy his connections to presidents that will pardon you. I mean, he was literally connected to the royal family, US presidents, he funded Watergate and then was pardoned by George Bush senior. So how do you think that it makes a grandson feel when your grandfather gets pardoned by the brother?

I mean, I don't know, but he also was able to pay a judge $50,000 and get his son exonerated from murdering someone. 50 grand? Yes. This was it. I believe in the 1950s. His son, Julian, killed somebody in the wee hours of the night, a friend of his, he shot him and he got it written off his self-defense by paying $50,000. So this man literally had the power to have not only

huge politicians, also like state politicians in his pockets to the point that they could literally get away with murder. We got a backup. I love how like a casual murder is just one side plot point to the cult of the hammer tale. It really does remind me so much of the Kendall plot line in succession, which I can't believe you still haven't watched you have to watch it. I know, it's nuts. Well, you have this story instead, so that's really the feeling your quota. Can you describe the details of the murder a little bit just for some context?

Yes, absolutely. So Armond Hammer, the great grandfather, his son Julian. The fuck up? Yes, who had been Arby's grandfather. He had a friend at the house, and you know, Casey Hammer and Michael Hammer's mother was still married to him. They got into a dispute in the early morning hours. He was like 26 years old and he shot his friend and killed him. Now years later, Hasey's mother did tell her it was definitely a cold blooded murder, but

his father had $50,000 delivered to a judge in LA and it was written off his self-defense. And this is information that I'm like, he said, she said, like, you can go on newspapers.com. You can find all the old newspaper articles about this. And it's just like, it's crazy, but it really happened, you know? Times were different back in the 1950s. Totally. Then you had Julian, Army's grandfather, who, according to Armond, the great, great grandfather

was not really living up to the Hammer family name. And yet, that cultistness had to have been passed down. What do you think was cultiest about Julian? I think the cultiest thing about Julian was obviously that he fashioned himself as a Hugh Hefner of Pacific Palisades. And you have this house where it's like rules don't exist. You have a bowl of cocaine at the door.

People are under the influence. There is money and it's all beholden to this higher cult leader, the great grandfather Armand. And Julian, it's just almost like this insane access to substances coupled with mental illness, coupled with trying to behave as badly as possible to get your father's attention, leads to a lot of different things. In addition to murder, there were guns everywhere. Guns were being shot at these parties. It almost feels like Julian took everything that his father gave him and fucked it up. He used all his resources, essentially just to party and abuse people in an emotional and

sexual capacity. He didn't have the mastermind behind the tactics. He was just nilly, willy, abusing people. Which is, you know, also, I think, a more common way to be a cult leader. It's like, Jim Jones was special. He was intelligent, he was widely read. He was a master code switcher in the way that

Armin, the great grandfather, was a master chameleon and could appeal to just about anyone. But most cult leaders are these debaturist opportunists, right? Maybe they have a little bit of charm, but mostly they're just these like Dionysian megalomaniacal heatedists who enjoy drinking and a little bit of LSD and sex and they don't have a grand master plan from the beginning but they will take any opportunity that comes their way. Well, you also have to remember with this slew of drugs and guns and all

these different things going on, there was a Manson-esque band of cracked out people who literally held this man hostage at one point, who broke into Julian's house and held him hostage and chased Casey around dressed like a ghost with a sombrero with a butcher's knife. There was a moment where a true and decent proposal happened where Julian offered his son Michael a million dollars for his girlfriend and then ended up dating the girlfriend for a while after a huge fight broke out

So you could probably Analyze this man and come up with like 17 different cults based on different points of his life that he Mirrored because towards the end of his life He thought everyone was an alien because his mental illness had devolved to such a point Which we've seen with cult leaders time and time again where yeah There's mental illness driving the paranoia, driving the rules of the cult. It almost feels like he had this cult like influence, but he had it in the degree of his personal life.

It was all within the bounds of his household. He just wanted power over people in a sexual and emotional capacity, and he didn't think big picture like his father had that comes in with his son Michael. Yeah, let's analyze Michael's cult leader brand. Oh my gosh There are multiple brands of cults in this family, but I think with Michael He married an incredibly religious evangelical woman and religion was really the smoke screen for Everything going on underneath the surface. It's almost like triple Coltie

because he used a Colt religion, Christianity, to cover his hammer cult. Yeah. And I want you to imagine the most evangelical version of Christianity, and that is what he was a part of. And siphoning the money that he got from his grandfather into. So from the outside looking in, it's like he has schools, he has foundations, he has the art gallery, but underneath it all, he had a fixer.

He had a sex throne. He also had multiple sexual assault allegations against him. I guess what this cult is is that every single person is presenting a veneer to the world that's a smoke screen and a fence, which behind this fence is criminal activity, abuse of women, a desire for power is probably a high level of narcissism. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of nix-yum. I mean, like, from the outside, it looks like it's

this organization, or in this case, this family, that you want to be in, that is going to help you, that the resources it has are only positive, but when you look underneath the surface, like you said, women are being abused, everyone is in a bad mental state, and people only seek more power in a toxic way. But next thing is a joke compared to the hammer family. I mean, next thing I'm lasted less than one generation,

and the hammers have been able to get away with so much because next thing looks like a cult. You have that intuitive response when you see the sashes and the Vee Wee camp and everybody's like, all happy dandy on a compound together. This on the surface doesn't look like a cult, and that's what makes it the biggest cult ever. And would you say like the mafia is a cult?

Because I would say that it mirrors something like that after us. I don't want to be sleeping with the fishes, but like it does truly mirror kind of the mafia. You have a bunch of different business dealings going on and different things like obviously the major looks scandal. So there is a desire to look like a business titan. Everyone's kind of trying to mirror Armand Hammer,

the great grandfather with that. But the other thing is, and I forgot to mention, this Armand Hammer branded everyone with his name because everyone's middle name is Armand. And Army is the only one with the first name of Armand. Oh my God, that reminds me of so many sociospiritual cults, which assign monastic names or cult-specific names to their members as a way to fill them

with a sense of elitism. You are special. You are different from everyone else. It's like in heaven's gate, when the moment you joined, you received a new name with a special suffix or in the happy, healthy, holy organization, which is a Kundalini yoga cult. Every woman has the same middle name, every man has the same middle name as

every other man and everyone has the same last name. And that's doing real religious work or cult like work to separate you from the rest of society. I think the biggest red flag for me of this cult is that you are literally born into it. So like when someone willingly joins a cult, they at least can have some people on the outside who are like come back to us, we miss you. Whereas like if you wanna leave this cult, you have to ostracize yourself

from your entire family, from your entire emotional support system and from your entire financial support system. And your reality, everything you've ever known. And ultimately, you don't have a normal support system, but you're so entrenched in this that you don't realize it. Casey did not know her life was weird. So let's talk about Army Hammer next, because as you mentioned, every generation has a slightly

different brand of cult leader vibe. You have the socio-political leader magnate at the top, like business boss babe, which is armin. Then you have the sort of debaturist hedonist, which is Julian, the kind of David Berg type fuck up. Then you have Michael, who's like this religious zealot, at least on the outside with his evangelicalism. And then you have Ar army, the last horsemen

of the cult leader apocalypse, celebrity. You know what the cultiest thing about army was? And I mean, I think that probably every girl in this room has been with a toxic man. There's a fucking playbook. And when you watch the documentary, he had a method to learning these women in, and they all experienced very similar things

throughout their relationship with him. Down to like the vacation he took them on, down to like things he said to them, down to the sort of death by a thousand paper cuts, leading up to pushing the boundary, pushing the boundary, and then pushing it so far that you go from like zero to a hundred, and you don't even really know how you got there. And I think that's what happens to people when they go into cults is it's not like immediately, they're like, this is a cult.

Like, of course they would run if they felt that way. At first they're like, this is amazing. This guy's amazing. It's a cult of one, a toxic relationship. One of the most extreme versions. Love bombing. Of course. Oh my God, you have the whole thing.

You have the love bomb, you have the groom, you have the coercive control. Can you talk a little bit about how fame and celebrity and social media contributed to Army Hammer's cult leaderishness and ultimately his downfall? I think that there's a level of narcissism that goes along with this, some people wanting to be movie stars, not all. So I think that there is a level of, you know, going against the grain with that, but I think being in that world, being super attractive, having money in connections just kind of led and spiraled to like really,

really bad out of control behavior, where somebody had access to literally everything that they could have ever wanted, and then they felt entitled to whatever they wanted to take from the women they were engaging with. And nothing was enough, right? And really non-consensual shit. So, yeah, I think that having access to so many things obviously led to army's cult leader-ishness because obviously not only is he good-looking, he's wealthy, he is a movie star. Of course, people are going to be drawn to him, so that was obviously in his favor. But then social media led to his downfall because he, I think, was so cavalier because he was so used to things going right for him

that he didn't think like, I don't even think it's used to things going right. I think it's the entitlement of never thinking he could get in trouble. I mean, his own grandfather murdered someone and got away with it. If your grandfather murdered someone and gets away with it, of course you're gonna DM someone I wanna eat,

your flesh from a verified account. It's not like this was a secret kept from him. Like he knew that, he would brag about it to women that he was dating, which is a weird thing to brag about. But I think you're right. I think it is a sense of entitlement and a sense that he was above the law. I mean, he had multiple generations confirming that for him.

And then obviously, because he was so cavalier about his voice notes and his messages and not trying to do things completely privately, there was actual tangible evidence that these women were able to put out on the internet. Thank God, because to be honest with you, I don't think people would believe them if there wasn't. Totally. Because it is actually so fucking crazy, the things that he said to them, that you would be like, there's no way somebody would say that.

Something that's very much cult of the patriarchy to me is that even though there is all this evidence, he literally admitted to doing certain things, isn't the case still ongoing? Yeah, as far as I know, it's still ongoing. And I mean, one other element that I think is interesting with the culture of the patriarchy is, and the cult of Hollywood is Robert Downey Jr. publicly took Armander his wing, allegedly paid for his very expensive, very fancy rehab. Like, I want to go to this rehab. Like, it looks like the fucking four seasons. You know, I mean, it's just the old boys' club, right?

All of it is the old boys' club, which is a cult in and of itself. Absolutely. I was gonna say it's like the Hammer family hates women in a very special way, but America hates women. And if you don't have to, you have to be rich to hate women in this country. Not at all.

And it's just if a man is famous enough and rich enough and well connected enough, he's always gonna have an out. And you're always gonna be able to rebrand yourself. I've said this so many times. Cancel culture only affects people without resources. There's a calculus that goes into whose careers get destroyed. Okay, I have a question for you guys though. So, harkening back to this, like,

cancel culture conversation, do you think that Army Hammer will ever be on our screens again? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think he'll get an acting role again? Yes. And what's your prediction? I think it depends. If he's held accountable legally for his actions, I don't think he will get cast again.

If he is not held accountable legally for his actions, I think in due time, he will be cast again. I mean, when you're going to Google him, it's not the number one thing that pops up right now either. Mm-hmm. I mean, to this day, he has a hardcore cult following. The call me by your name stands. Will go see him and something else.

You know, he'll be subjected to the legal system, but he'll also be subjected to the court of public opinion and the jury's still out there. Okay, so Lauren, out of the three cult categories, what do you think the cult of the Hammer Family is? A live your life? A watch your back? Or a get the fuck out level cult? I think maybe a get the fuck out level cult?

You think? I mean, I'm murder, rape, abuse, power of money. I mean, I don't know maybe I should hear that. I think they're trying to rebrand, so. As cult tentative. And my rebrand, you mean rebrand on another ass cheek because they are not, they are not getting out of this world. Hail no. Yeah, I think Get the Fuck Out is the only reasonable answer for this one.

And unfortunately for society to truly get the fuck out, I think Get the Fuck Out is the only reasonable answer for this one. And unfortunately, for society to truly get the fuck out, I think Army Hammer needs to be held accountable, like legally. And he might even be the first generation in his family to ever do so. But we'll see. Does this mean that I can never watch the social network or call me by your name ever again? You can go on 123movies.com and watch it legally. Pipe it in.

Lauren, holy shit. Thank you so much for joining us.com, watch it legally. Pipe it out. Lauren, holy shit. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. If our listeners want to find you or follow you, where can they do that? So I am the Zen Blonde on TikTok and Instagram. And also, if you like the stories we told, surviving my birthright by Kasey Hammer is a great book.

And you know, she survived the Hammer family, so gotta give her a little plug. Yeah. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with the new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But that's too culty!

But that's too culty! Sounds like a cult was created, hosted and produced by Issa Medina and Amanda Montel. Our theme music is by Casey Colt. This episode was edited and mixed by Jordan Moore of the Pod Cabin. To join our cult, follow us on Instagram at Sounds Like a Colt Pod. I'm on Instagram at Amanda Under Swear Montel and feel free to check out my books, Cultish, the language of analysis and word-slet, a feminist guide to taking back the English language. And I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A, and D-I-N-A,

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