The Louis Theroux Podcast - S4 EP5: Armie Hammer discusses allegations against him, being shunned by famous friends, and his unconventional family history

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Louis speaks to actor, podcast host and figure of some controversy, Armie Hammer. Dialing in from his new apartment in downtown LA, Armie and Louis discuss the allegations against him, being shunned by famous friends and his unconventional family history.   Warnings: Strong language and graphic sexual content, as well as discussions of sensitive themes, including sexual abuse. For further information and support, visit https://resources.byspotify.com/.  Links/Attachments: ‘Armie Hammer Breaks His Silence’ – Air Mail  https://airmail.news/issues/2023-2-4/armie-hammer-breaks-his-silence    Podcast: ‘The Armie HammerTime Podcast’ (2024 – present)  https://open.spotify.com/show/05ozD8G0kGIAwJj2PRCjl0    TV Show: ‘House of Hammer’ (2022) – Discovery +  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIQ80m7831I    Instagram Account: @armiehammervictims   https://www.instagram.com/armiehammervictims?igsh=MTVpbWw2OGMweGFleg==    TV Show: ‘The Offer’ (2022) – Paramount+   https://www.paramountplus.com/gb/shows/the-offer/    Shotgun Wedding (2022) – Amazon Prime  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shotgun-Wedding-Jennifer-Lopez/dp/B0B76PXDYJ    ‘Victim of cannibal agreed to be eaten’ – The Guardian  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/04/germany.lukeharding    Frontier Crucible (upcoming film)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34370951/    ‘Armie Hammer Returns to Acting With ‘Frontier Crucible’ Western’ – The Hollywood Reporter   https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/armie-hammer-acting-return-western-frontier-crucible-1236048900/  Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Emilia Gill  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards Shownotes compiled by Immie Webb   Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microphone check. Chickity check, chickity check, microphone check. Hello, Louis Theroux here, and welcome to another episode of my podcast called The Louis Theroux Podcast. Today, we're joined by actor, podcast host and figure of some controversy, Armie Hammer. Armie's first notable role was in 2010, starring as both of the Winklevoss twins in David Fincher's film The Social Network. You remember that Jesse Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg. It was about the founding of Facebook. He went on to land the lead role in Luca Guadagnino's coming of age film, Call Me By Your Name,

alongside the then relatively unknown Timothy Chalamet. However, in 2021 multiple women came forward and accused Armie of abuse ranging from emotional manipulation to sexual assault and these accusations derailed his career. There was obviously much more to it than that and it went particularly viral because one of the allegations was, and strongly denied by Ami, I might add, was that Ami was a cannibal. In this conversation, I spoke to Ami about several of the allegations, but largely about two of the main complainants, a woman referred to as Effie, who accused him of sexual assault, and Courtney, who alleges emotional abuse and sexual coercion. Alongside these women are other anonymous complainants who have shared

stories about messages from Army, including cannibalistic and extreme BDSM content. Now after an investigation by the LAPD fell down due to insufficient evidence, Army is back, recently wrapping his first film since the scandal and launching his own podcast, the Army Hammer Time podcast. This one was recorded in mid-December of last year. Army joined me from his apartment in downtown LA, which is why you might hear the occasional rubbish truck outside. And just to flag that, we get straight in there with a conversation about some heavy stuff. A warning. Surprise, surprise. There is strong language and graphic sexual content in this

episode as well as discussions of sensitive themes including sexual abuse. Who have you got with you? I got producer Jerry. Jerry's a buddy of mine who I met when I was 19 years old at Burning Man, funnily enough, and now we make this podcast in my living room together. So Jerry's the producer of the podcast that you launched earlier this year, which is being touted as something of a comeback vehicle. I don't know if that's a, would you, how does that characterization sit with you? You know, I think the whole point of this was never to sort of be a comeback. The whole point of this was to sort of lean into the uncomfortable.

If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I needed to write a book or do a podcast over the last four years, I wouldn't have to do a podcast or write a book. But the whole point of this has never been I'm going to rehabilitate my image or I'm doing this so people can see me or anything like that. The whole point of this was like there is a very uncomfortable aspect about leaning into the vulnerable. And I have just found over the last couple of years that those things that make you uncomfortable are

actually the things that you should lean into. Well I'm gonna take that as my cue to make things get a little bit more uncomfortable. I had a feeling this was coming. Yeah that was a nice segue. Look this is a, well how do I put this,, this is a, well, how do I put this? Like this is a tough interview because obviously opinions run very hot on you on what you did, what you allegedly did. Even the kind of the kind narrative needs unpacking, right? And then there's the less generous kind of more critical take that is extremely dark, right? So I guess we're going to get in at the deep end, you know, a heralded actor, someone who through some fallow years, like as a touted new leading man in Hollywood, then you came through with Social Network and then you came through with Call Me

By Your Name. And suddenly, beginning of 2021 was looking like a big year for you. And then these tweets come out alleging that you have unsavory at best and possibly predatory sexual interests. Yeah, you know, the fable of Icarus, you know, there it is, like you fly too close to the sun with wings made of wax, you're going to drop. And that's certainly what I was doing. I was burning bright and I was burning hot and in the process of doing that none of it brought me any joy, none of it made me feel good about myself, none of it gave me the sense of validation that I was so desperately seeking from external sources. So the answer is when that doesn't work what do you need? More and I

would just lean into more and more and more. And it didn't work. Well this is, I mean, I'm going to jump in because I want to make it real for people. The previous year you had separated from your wife because you'd been pursuing an affair. That much you've talked about? Well no, I would say that I pursued an affair because things were not going well. You know, I think what I have found is that happy people in happy relationships generally don't have affairs.

So that is always sort of the crescendo, and there's always a mountain underneath that of relationship issues. You know, I'm certainly not here to air the dirty laundry of my marriage, but it was a classic tale of two people growing over a long course of a long marriage. I was married for nine years and I got married when I was 23, 24 years old, very young and didn't even have a firm sense or understanding of myself as you typically don't at 24 years

old. I don't know that there was enough checking in with each other or monitoring each other or caring, you know, going both ways. And so I think we grew separately and I was unhappy and I did what unhappy people do in a marriage. I had an affair. It was a four-year affair. So it was... No, it was it was briefer than that. The physical aspect of the affair lasted about ten months.

Okay. So where has the four-year figure come from? Was there a texting relationship for a while? Yeah, after the 10-month physical affair, I would say there was a period, I wouldn't say it was four years, but there was a period where there was still a back and forth, sometimes heated exchange, sexually heated exchange between me and the person I had the affair with. You know, I mean, I was getting extremely graphic sexual messages and sometimes late at night, if I was drunk or if I was feeling lonely or upset, it was exactly the dopamine hit that I needed

and I would respond in kind. And then sometimes I would pull away and go, I'm not doing this with you. And then, you know, later I'd get another message and depending on the mood I was in is how I would react to it. So sometimes I got sucked back in. Sometimes I initiated but you know, there was a there was a text aspect of the affair that went on longer than the physical aspect.

Yeah. I think it's been alleged that the woman in question, Effie Angelova, had said, I'm used to, I work in a dungeon, I'm used to discretion, something along those lines. Yeah. Suggesting that she was involved in the kink world, I guess. And that was something you'd been curious about and it had been reported even maybe afterwards, but certainly before all the most lurid allegations came out that you'd had an interest in Japanese rope tying, possibly in BDSM. So what I've heard you say is that

that kind of kindled or catalyzed a greater interest in you? And certainly, how would you put it? You've described it as almost like seeing it as an entree into something that you were curious about? I have a theory on human nature that I call my beach ball theory, that every human being is a beach ball. And your beach ball, the size of it, how much air is in it, is what makes all of us individual and unique. And that beach ball is how much you like to sleep at night, how much you like to drink, how much you like to have sex, what kind of sex you like to have, any of those sort of desires that we have, that's your beach ball. And you can take your beach ball and you can push it underwater for a person or a religious institution or a job, whatever it is that you need to do

to repress that beach ball, you can push it underwater. But the further underwater you push it and the longer you hold it there, the more potential energy it builds. And eventually one day you're going to lose grip of that beach ball and it's not going to gently rise to the surface. It's going to go and shoot way up in the air. But my theory and I've seen it now in my life is that just like it doesn't belong underwater, it doesn't belong up in the air. And if it shoots up in the air and it doesn't pop, it's going to fall and land on the surface. And so I would say that that affair was me losing grip on my beach ball and it shot way up into the air.

Meaning what? Meaning I lost control of my desires. I lost the ability to safely navigate my life because my beach ball, my desires were unchecked and I had money and I had fame and I had attention and more importantly I had access to anything I wanted. My question is, are we saying that your desires became more extreme? That it felt like, I suppose the act of the affair was the transgression in that case, or that the sex became more charged, more transgressive? I wouldn't say that there was any sort of transgressive nature of it. I mean, everything was consensual between willing partners and people who seemingly enjoyed the same things that I did. Mason Let's put a pin in that. So that in January 2021, texts were released from the person you were

pursuing the affair with. And these are the ones that went viral and became famous. One was from you saying, I am 100% accountable. Fuck, that's scary to admit. I've never admitted that before. I've cut the heart out of a living animal before and eaten it while still warm. How would you like to contextualize that? I think the most important context

to give these kinds of things is they are one side of a conversation. As you'll notice, of all of the text messages that were released, the person who released them, their side was cut out of the entire conversation. It makes it look like I was just rambling to myself. I mean, if you look, there's really no response in any of these. These are just excerpts from things you've said.

There's no the other side is not in it. Correct. Which, you know, any digitally altered evidence is immediately inadmissible because you have no context. You like, that could have been a very funny conversation between two people who were joking and pushing each other and egging each other on in the way that sometimes you see comedians pushing the boundary further and further when they're having a conversation. I'm not going to argue the messages.

But go on, just I want to jump in because in a sense, I mean, all that's valid, but I'm giving you a chance to explain, are you a cannibal? I guess this thing is true. You know what you have to do to actually be a cannibal? You have to actually eat human flesh. So, no. That makes sense. I'm sorry to be so literal, but because these texts were taken literally, and, you know, that had an enormous impact on your life, I think it's probably helpful to clarify which parts of it are literally true. Did you cut the heart out of the animal and eat it while still warm? No, you don't eat the whole heart. You didn't do that. One of the traditions is you take a bite out of the heart and you've got all your buddies around you, they're goading you on. It's sort of like a, it's sort of like a almost overly charged male right of passage when you go hunting for your first time. Everyone that I know who went hunting for their first

time had to do something similar. Mason- So you did that? A. Yeah. Not for the purpose of any cannibalism or any sexual gratification. No. Mason- There's some part of you based on these texts that is fascinated by cannibalism. I think it's been alleged several times that you enjoyed blood, that the blood play or however you term it. I'm just wondering how real that is and specifically, and again I'm not trying to be weird, like is there a part of you that, because there was, I can't remember, there was another,

I think it was maybe another accuser who suggested that you wanted to cut a small piece of skin and cook it and eat it? Do you know the one I'm talking about? No, there was never any real intention to do that. A lot of that stuff was born out of... okay. Do you watch pornography? Have I watched it? Yes. Okay. I don't mean to be so sassy about it. No one needs the image of me watching pornography in their head. Listen, bro, no one needs the image of me eating flesh in their head. So if we're gonna do this, we're gonna meet on equal playing fields. So okay, so probably the first time that you looked at pornography, a picture of a woman in a brassiere was enough to make you go, Whoa, you got that dopamine hit, you

got that rush. But then maybe the next time, you wanted a little bit more. And then maybe the next time, you wanted a little bit more. And maybe there was a period in your life at some point where you didn't have much to do and you spent an hour straight

looking at pornography on the internet. Where you start that hour and where you end that hour are usually very different places because you push back very gently on that in the sense that sure you know would it help if I said the generic you not specifically no no it's not so much about me okay you know I appreciate people's right to consent to things that I might not enjoy like that's the basis of freedom and living in a free society nevertheless I have no interest in BDSM. It just never

appealed to me. And by the way, I'm not even suggesting, maybe for you, going to an extreme would be, I watched a threesome video. You know, something like that. I don't even think, you know, I hear what you're saying, and I'm not trying to be difficult. It's a kind of conveyor belt theory, and it's the idea that our appetites get coarser and you need more and more. But by the way, it's uncomfortable when people start to poke around on your sexual preferences. I'm fine with I'm on board. I'm on board with that. But my point is this, we can let that thing go. My point is this is that sometimes when you're involved with

a person and you're dating and you guys are having sex, and you are a bit of a provocateur and you are exacerbated by alcohol or drugs or anything like that. Like it's fun to ruffle feathers and it's fun to push the envelope little by little. Did I ever have any intention of cutting anything off of anyone or eating anything off of anyone? No. That was never really anything that I wanted. Was it fun to joke about if I was stoned or drunk or like laughing as I was typing these messages? Sure, that's where context comes in.

You make jokes, I'm sure with your friends, that if I took your phone and made them public and removed your friends half of the jokes, you would probably be in hot water. And that's why this is why I say to everybody who wants to have an opinion on what they've seen or what they've read about me is like, okay, you can say whatever you want, you can judge me as much as you want from any public platform that you want. Give me your phone for 45 minutes before you do it. And almost everyone goes, ooh. So I think it's very easy to point fingers. I hear that.

I feel like I've put you in a position of being defensive and that's not kind of where I wanted to be. I sort of agree. And again, it's like, we all say things that out of context sound weird, but I am genuinely curious about kind of what that is for you. Like there's some part of you that gets a thrill out of that, whereas most people don't get a thrill out of that idea. I would say there's less of a... there's not a part of me that gets a thrill out of the idea of actually eating someone. Like that's absurd. Like this is not... it's not reality. There's a thing called cuteness aggression. Do you know what cuteness aggression is?

I think what you're gonna say is it's like when you see a baby with chubby cheeks and you say I could just gobble you all up. Yeah, or like, oh my god, you're so cute. I just want to bite you like that whole thing. That's what that is. But that isn't the same as inflicting pain and this was also... Well, now you're conflating two separate things because you asked me about this and then you say well, that's not the same as inflicting pain and this was also... Well now you're conflating two separate things because you ask me about this and then you say, well that's not the same as inflicting pain. Okay, no, that's fair. That's I guess more to do with control or... Sure, control, ownership, possession, but at the end of the day, also just talking shit.

Again, out of context, purely what you said, we don't know what she said. This is the quote, raping you on your floor with a knife against you, everything else seemed boring. You crying and screaming, me standing over you. I felt like a god. I've never felt such power or intensity. Someone could read that and think, wow, that sounds a lot like someone raping someone. Out of context. Out of context. Sure.

I can see that clearly. The other part of that conversation was, you know, how much the other person enjoyed it, the things that they liked about it, the things that the next time they want to do differently or more of. You know, I mean, this was a back and forth conversation between two people who were expressing their sexuality in a way that they both agreed to and consented to. You know, I mean, there's a big part of the BDSM world that when taken out of context, looks not great. We should say for the listeners BDSM stands for bondage, what does it sound, bondage domination, sadism, masochism, correct? Is that right? And the other term, the other

acronym is CNC. Do you want to explain that one? No, I'll let you take that one, Louis. Why? Because I honestly feel like I've talked about this a lot. So for me, I've said all this stuff. I've answered all of these questions before, you know. I mean, look, I'm very happy to be here talking to you, but, you know, I have answered all of these questions. I appreciate that. I mean, I sense that your patience is, I don't know, maybe wearing a little thin. I also think that there's a lot of people out there, just the idea of me talking to you, they're gonna be like, Oh, why don't you platform that guy?

Right? Yeah, I get it. I get it. So for me, it's just part of the process to to deal with what's in people's heads. You know, what they're coming to this thinking like, that's the guy who wanted to smoke his girlfriend's rib, isn't it? You know what I mean? No, but that's the thing. It's not. I think that that's the narrative that was put out there. I think that timing was really unfortunate.

I think that it all the confluence of sort of the Me Too movement, people locked in their apartment during COVID, people being unhappy and miserable and having a sensational story to follow, where it almost felt like there was a mass hysteria going on. I even got investigated because of these internet sleuths who were all over it at the time. I got pulled into a murder investigation that happened in Wonder Valley, California. The sheriff had to come out and basically say, he is not a suspect.

He wasn't even here when it happened. He is not even a person of interest. Please stop calling my sheriff's department and telling me that Armie Hammer did it. He's not a suspect. I mean, that was just what was going on in the world. But the fact of the matter is, is like, all of this stuff came up, right?

And then I lost all of my work. I lost access to my children. I lost all of my representation. I was then investigated by the LAPD sexual crimes unit for two and a half years. They went through my phone. They went through my emails. They went through all of my correspondences. They saw the completion of these conversations, not the one side of it.

So at the end of the day, people can have their narrative, people can say what they want, people can think what they want, people can be like, isn't that the guy who wanted to eat ribs? And if that's what they want to think, okay. At the end of the day, like, I don't need to be that guy for myself. If I need to be that guy for them, so that they have their own idea of me, that's okay. But that doesn't have to be me. As you said, the LAPD opened a case in 2021. For two years, they investigated it and then issued a statement saying they had no confidence that they could bring a case that would be found guilty of the unreasonable doubt. It was discontinued There also was texts brought up in the piece that you mentioned by the guy an airmail Where it appeared that the alleged victim had said I'm not calling

I've never said army is a rapist and and there were a lot of Extinuating remarks that she made that strongly suggested. Yeah, before she accused me of rape, someone online said to her, why don't you just say he raped you? And her response was, he didn't. He didn't rape me. I was never raped. But then her story changed to, he raped me. And you can't control what people say. You can't control how people react to it. And something that was also stated in the airmail is that the woman who falsely accused me of rape was then told by her lawyer to sign a declaration under penalty of perjury that everything she said was true, she wouldn't sign it. And this is where you're all read. Yeah, one of the most famous sort of me too, litigants. I mentioned the phrase CNC, it stands for Consensual Non-consent and it's the enacting

of a scenario in which one in a sense role plays a sexual assault, acts it out for fantasy purposes so it's a safe form of sex in which you simulate rape. Correct, which by the way is a very common fantasy. You know, I mean, I think that it doesn't get spoken about enough but I think I read a stat somewhere where it said something it's over one-third of women have had a fantasy similar to that and so finding a safe way to do that where you can find a willing and safe partner to do this with to enact your fantasies. I mean this this is not anything unusual, you know. So it was a scenario where you met her in a Starbucks, followed quote unquote her back

to her apartment, and then took advantage quote unquote of her. She then I guess characterized it as non-consensual. Sure. I mean, the fact the matter is, is you know, there was a dialogue even leading up to it moments before, and even during the encounter. It wouldn't have resonated quite so much. I mean, obviously out of context, it's already lurid and kind of shocking and you know, especially in that kind of post-COVID stimulation starved environment. It just went global. It became a huge story. But there were also other women coming forward saying, he took advantage of me as well, or we were involved in sex that didn't feel comfortable as well.

All of those things were also investigated by the LAPD. A lot of this, I think, was put very well, where they said, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And by the way, I'm very quick to admit that I was selfish and inconsiderate and an asshole and a cad and I used people to make me feel better. People were sort of like my bags of dope with skin on them, you know? You make me feel amazing, so I'm going to throw everything into this and we're going to have this whirlwind romance and I'm going to whisk you up and we're gonna have this World wind romance and I'm gonna whisk you up and we're gonna go on trips and we're gonna do all this and then I'm gonna Bring you home and I'm gonna go. Thanks so much. That was great And then I'm gonna move on and then I would go do something almost exactly the same with someone else and I left a lot

Of people in that wake very angry at me for my behavior, which by the way was asshole behavior, there's no way around that but Swooping someone up love bombing them being the term that we use now and then dropping them off and moving on You know is is it asshole behavior? Absolutely. There's no way around that. Does it make me a dick? Absolutely, like I have no problem admitting that I was a dick, but that's not illegal, you know? And so I think that that is what is also being conflated, which not by you, but sort of by this culture that we're in now.

You were taking a lot of drugs and drinking quite a lot at the time. That was also part of what was happening, I believe. It's a lot more fun when you do it like that, yeah. What were you consuming? I mean, just in terms of, I would say, what was I consuming? Life, just all of it, as much as I could.

What did you have? You know, it was like, I wanted- MDMA, ketamine. Yeah, sure, sure. I was no stranger to anything. Heroin? No, heroin was never, I mean, you know, opiates popping, popping a pill, like that kind of thing. I had access and I had no self-control.

So there was also a kind of a bitey complexion to some of the allegations there. I mean, I think your point earlier about conditional consent, that phrase that you used, I mean, point earlier about conditional consent, that phrase that you used, I mean, all these all these terms are not in different degrees, kind of loaded one way or another. I think Courtney for second features has sort of contended that oh, he bit me and at the time, and she I think she put there was a picture of the bite marks that you left on her shoulder. Does that she did? Yeah, she did put she did allege that there were bite marks that you left on her shoulder? Does that sound right? Yeah, she did put, she did allege that there were bite marks that I left on her. They were even in the documentary. That's right, there was a documentary called House of Hammer on Discovery. But by the way, the pictures,

the pictures that she put of my bite mark were later traced back to Pinterest, where they were the picture of a young child who bit their parents, and the young child died, and the parents got that bite mark tattooed on themselves. So the alleged bite mark that she showed wasn't even of me. And I mean, you can check that yourself. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, oh, by the way, producer Jerry just showed me

something that says, House of Hammer, Army Hammer docuseries to remove image of alleged bite mark after validity is questioned. So I mean, that was even taken out of the documentary. Interesting. So did you bite her? Sure, I'm sure I did. I'm sure I did. I like to bite. I like sexually, like I like to bite. It has nothing to do with being a cannibal. But like, yeah, it's one of the things that I enjoy doing. I don't do it to a partner who doesn't enjoy it.

I mean, that's the thing, like, I'm having sex with these people, right? I'm in a relationship of some kind with these people. I want them to enjoy themselves as much as I'm enjoying myself. There's no part of me that wants to foist any part of my sexuality on anyone who's not a willing participant.

And in fact, if I do something sexually to someone and they enjoy it, I get gratification from that. If I'm having sex with someone and they're not enjoying it, the programming that I have, the messaging that I get goes, oh, see, you're not good at this. And that's not what I want. Like I enjoy being sexual with the people that I'm sexual with, and I enjoy their pleasure just as much, if not more, than my own.

So why would I have sexual people in a way that they don't enjoy? There's no gratification there for me. There's nothing that I get out of that. And by the way, just to get back to Courtney alleging that I bit her, and I'd be happy to show you, and more than willing, but I have text messages from her during

our relationship about how much she enjoyed it. And like her taking pictures of the bite marks and sending them to me and saying, I love this. Look at this. Look at this one. This one's beautiful. Like, I have all those things. You were with her for about four months, I think. If that long. One of the things that Effie contended was that you were cheating on your wife not just with her but with other people as well. No, Effie was the first time that I ever stepped out of my marriage. I'd never cheated before that.

And then that caused a separation and all that stuff. So in other words, in the marriage, there was not more than her. I mean, Effie alleged a lot. Did you happen to see the two years worth of tweets from Effie herself where she was saying she wants my nine-year-old daughter to be raped? I did not see that. This is a person who's not well, you know?

This is a person who everybody, without choosing to vet or choosing to sort of critically examine, said, yeah, this all must be true. Army must be a cannibal rapist. Because one of the things, I don't know if it's her account or someone else's, there's also this account on Instagram,

armyhammervictims, have you seen that? I don't know if she's managing that. Some of the allegations are about men, that there are male victims, and this is... I heard about that. I've never had sex with a man in my entire life. Someone told me that on there, there was a man who accused me of raping him and doing all of these terrible things to him. And the second I heard that Armie Hammer Victims or whatever it is was sort of like touting this as one of my victims, when as I said before, I've never even had sex with a man, then I immediately just go, oh, okay, well then this source, this site, this page, whatever it is, if they're going,

this guy said this, it must be true, when in fact I know for a fact that it's not, then that makes me question every other thing that's ever been on that page. Because it's like, well, I don't know where that story came from. I can tell you where I think it came from. Where do you think it came from? From, you know, people wanting to jump on a wave people wanting attention people wanting to be a part of a community They get a lot of attention. They get a lot of support They get a lot of people online being like we're with you, you know, stay strong We love you that kind of thing which is currency these days

that digital Affirmation that digital attention all of that is a main form of currency these days. That digital affirmation, that digital attention, all of that is a main form of currency these days. That makes me question the validity of the whole thing. So initially, this goes viral and just getting back into our timeline 2021, it kind of ripples through the internet and through the gossip magazines and newspapers. And what happens next? Your jobs start kind of drying up. You were signed up to do a series about the making of The Godfather called The Offer. There was also a movie with J. Lo, is that right? Yeah, Shotgun Wedding.

So talk me through what happens next. All my jobs went away in the blink of an eye. There wasn't a process. It just all seemed to happen overnight. Jobs, representation, everything just went, boom. It was a complete death. It was a career death. It was an ego death.

It was a financial death. It was all of these things But you know young and Joseph Campbell talk about the idea and concept of death a lot Joseph Campbell specifically he says things like you know the hero must die so the hero can be be born again There was a lot of aspects to army hammer that I didn't identify with that I didn't relate to, that I just didn't actually feel were a legitimate part of me. And that death killed off all of those things. It killed off all of the ego.

It killed off all of the bullshit. It killed off all of the pretense. And I spent three years and change really having to examine myself and really having to look at myself and really having to go woof all of the external validation that I was getting, not only did it go away, it turned into global hate. So I can't rely on that to make me feel good. I can't rely on that to feed my soul. So I needed to stop and I needed to figure out who I was and I

needed to figure out what I was about. And basically I spent the last couple years taking care of my father as he died, taking my kids to and from school every single day, spending time with myself alone, learning to love myself. It really now with a sense of distance and perspective from it, it's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Did you, you know, there was a there was a raft of obviously A-list stars you'd worked with over the years. I wrote a list just a quick one before this call just to so I'd have them at my fingertips. Julia Roberts, you were in

with Mirror Mirror. Jesse Eisenberg, obviously Social Network. Timothy Chalamet, call me by your name. Johnny Depp, Lone Ranger. Leonardo DiCaprio, you were in the movie J. Edgar, the Clint Eastwood movie, and many, many others, right? But those are just obviously big marquee names. These were people I imagine you would have called maybe friends or been on friendly terms with. To what extent were you able to rely on goodwill or a sense of, you know, what does that look like when you're in the spotlight as a potential rapist or predator, right? How does that all shake out? a rapist or predator, right? How does that all shake out? I remember I was talking to this guy, he's an old Jamaican guy, and I was complaining about how I might get an email or a text message or a phone call of someone in any position of power or prestige or authority or whatever,

and they would say, dude, like, I know you. Like, this is not you. Whoever these people are talking about, it's just not you. Like, this is so wild to me. And I was complaining to him about it. And I was saying, like, anyone who reaches out to me, which was basically no one, but like anyone who reaches out to me and says this to me, like, don't do that. Like say this publicly. Like this is crazy that this is happening. And this was very early on in the situation. I've learned a lot since then.

But one of the things he said to me was, what kind of fucking friend are you? And I go, what are you talking about, dude? I'm a great friend. I would do anything for my friends. Like, if my friend needed, I would give a friend my car, like whatever it is, I would do anything for my friends. That's the kind of friend I am. And he goes, yeah, you think so?

You think you're a good friend? And I go, no, I know I'm a good friend. He goes, really? He said, your house is on fire and it's burning to the ground around you. What happens to your friends if you ask them to run into your burning house? And I thought about it for a second and I said they would get burned. And he said, do you want your friends to get burned?

And I said, no, I don't. He said, if you were really a good friend, what would you want for your friends? And I thought about it for a bit and I said, I would want them to stay as far away from the fire as possible. And he patted me on the leg. And he said, now you're thinking like a good friend. And he stood up and he walked away. You know, there were many people out there for whom you're toast. Like they, you know, there's everyone out there, right? There's a whole spectrum of opinion.

And on one side, there's people that, you know what, I believe anyone who says they're a victim and there's several people here saying they're victims, he's done, right? And then on the other side, there'll be kind of Manasphere adjacent people who are like, you know, a man can't be a man anymore. And there was a lynch mob that came for our man army and it's an injustice. You know, obviously I don't know exactly what happened. I do think there's a very plausible scenario though, in which you, you know, as a good looking, at the time rich, famous, talented Hollywood Hollywood actor was able to get his needs met, his sexual and to an extent emotional needs met in a way that was kind of cutting a swathe and

that your tastes were quite spicy, right? That your tastes were a little bit more out there than you might find for some people. You know, and what am I basing that on? I don't know, just instinct, I guess. And also the sort of sense of, I guess, outrage and the feeling that, you know, for most of these fantasies might seem extreme, biting, whatever. And that in other words, that you kind of leveraged your fame and your charisma to slightly coax people out of their comfort zone and they were cocooned in a feeling of okay I might one day be Mrs Hammer right or this this is going somewhere he's serious about me and they ended up feeling

violated. Does that sound like a plausible scenario? Does it sound plausible? Sure. Do you think that's what happened? I think it's very hard to put yourself in any situation and say, this is what I think happened and really encapsulate the entire situation. Are you entitled to the opinion? Absolutely. Are there portions of that that might be right? Absolutely. Is there more to the story than that?

There could be. It's all up for interpretation. And I think that people are allowed to have whatever opinion they want. I just wonder whether because even in the airmail story, it's like people I got the sense that people were saying, dude, you need to be careful. Like, this is not wise, like to have adventurous, you know, if I can put it euphemistically, adventurous, playful, creative, edgy sex, as a a famous person with people who you maybe don't know that well, like or relatively... There's an aspect of that that is true. Was I engaging with unsafe

people? Yeah. Was I being reckless on my own part? Sure. Yeah. Did I ever do anything illegal? Did I ever do anything intentionally to hurt anybody? No. You joked in an article in Elle a year or so before, maybe a bit longer, before all this stuff came out in 21, you said, my wife says I have a frontal lobe issue. And your frontal lobe controls danger responses. Sure. I mean, every, every male who's under's under I think 26 or 27 has a frontal lobe issue. It's not fully developed till then. So yes. And you have a tattoo that says chaos? I do. Talk to me about that. It's a wonderful reminder that I thought I was enjoying a chaotic life when in fact the chaos was enjoying me a lot more than I was enjoying it. So I mean, I've thought about removing

it but I'm very happy that it's there now. It's almost like a warning sign. So it sounds like you've, you've, you've, you've, what's the best way of putting it? You no longer feel that say, um's a watchword for you, that actually maybe that's not the most helpful word to subscribe to. What do you mean by watchword? Well, that you don't subscribe to the idea of chaos, that actually that's a phase you've moved on from, you've grown out of that. I should probably get boredom on the other arm. You know, like, I mean, that's where

I'm at now in my life, is the idea that if I'm ever bored then all boredom is is Serenity unappreciated so enjoy the serenity. How long have you been sober for I? Didn't drink for About three and a half years not a drop of alcohol not any drugs Nothing like that. Where are you at now? I Would say that while I don't necessarily practice physical sobriety anymore, I don't get drunk, I don't get high, I don't get stoned. Not because I'm afraid as an addict that if I go have a drink I'm going to be sucking

dick for crack in the alley. It's not that for me. I just don't do it because I don't enjoy it anymore. There's nothing about that that's attractive to me. There's nothing left in that world of alcohol or drugs or partying. There's nothing left in that world that I didn't try. And I can tell you that of all the things I tried, nothing make me as happy as I feel today.

Just being calm and being chill and being a good dad and being there for my listeners. Your work dried up. It sounds like your phone calls weren't being returned. Your agents dropped you. Oh, it's not that my phone calls weren't being returned. I changed my number, I got a flip phone, and I disappeared. What happened? So what were you doing at that point? Were you sober then, or did that come later? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, it came very shortly after everything happened. I realized that there was gonna be nothing that was added to the situation by me playing with matches and, you know, drinking or doing drugs or anything like that like that was not that was not what was needed in this situation what was needed in this situation was actually me facing this letting pain be the teacher letting suffering be that thing that is promised in every major world religion but that thing that is our great teacher concretely what were you doing like were

you um you were living in LA? Did you go straight into rehab? No, I was down in the Cayman Islands. And then what did you do? You went to Florida for rehab? I did, yeah, I went to a trauma treatment facility. It was a dual diagnosis place. They do substance alcohol addiction

as well as trauma treatment. So I got to work on all of my issues So I got to work on all of my issues. I got to work on all of my childhood trauma. I got to work on any sort of substance issues that I might have had or more accurately instead of substance abuse issues I would say that I got to work on the core issues of why it is that I did the things that I did. Why did I drink the way that I did? Why did I do drugs the way that I did?

Why did I engage sexually in the way that I did with the that I did. Why did I drink the way that I did? Why did I do drugs the way that I did? Why did I engage sexually in the way that I did with the people I did? I got to really sort of peel back all of that and it still to this day remains one of the most helpful things that I've ever done for myself. And what did you find? I mean, to put it very simply, a lot of validation issues, a lot of self-love issues, a lot of trauma that was untreated and manifesting in ways that I was not specifically in control of. I enjoyed the two-part podcast episodes you did where you interviewed your mom. One of the things that comes up is, well, first of all, your mom is an evangelical Christian. She says her number

one priority is Jesus Christ. And it's also mentioned that, and forgive me if this is, I mean, we don't need to talk about this if this is uncomfortable, so let me know. But can I mention what you talk about? Sure. So it's mentioned that you were abused, that you were one of a number of victims and that your parents seemed to be hesitant or not quick to kind of endorse the fact that your claims were real and needed to be taken seriously and that in some way you didn't feel heard so you had the abuse and the feeling of having to deal with it on your own. Is there any way to relate that to what happens later? I mean I don't

want to resist easy causal links right so I don't want to... I'm sure resist easy causal links, right? So I don't want to be like, okay, it all makes sense. I'm not a therapist, but I think that it would be very difficult not to relate that in some way with reverberating effects through the rest of your life, of anyone's life. And, you know, my mom and I spent hours talking. There were aspects of that that I needed to look at, and I needed to process and that I needed to come to terms with and I needed to accept and I needed to move through. So that that, as well as any of the other traumas that I've experienced or that anyone's experienced for that matter, don't have sort of shadow effects on the rest of their life. There's another narrative, and this is the one that's outlaid in the series. Have you seen the series House of Hammer? No, I watched about half of the first episode and chuckled kind of through it. It relies heavily on my aunt who claims to be some authority on me or my behavior And this is an aunt that I have never in my life spent one-on-one time with ever

Yes, this is your father's sister. Well a lot of her testimony is related to your your grandfather Julie but then but then 50% of the people interviewed about me, I've never met in my entire life. So I think calling it a documentary is a bit of a stretch. So it's kind of a succession-ish saga. It starts with Julius, a Russian Jewish businessman who's also one of the founders of the American Communist Party. His son Armand Hammer becomes an oil mogul, makes tens if not hundreds of millions, then his son Julian, your grandfather, is a little bit of a tear away, shoots a man over a debt

for $500, kills him, is a sort of Hugh Hefner figure going around drinking and drugging in his dressing gown. I don't know if that's fair to Hugh Hefner. Right. Yeah. The picture they paint is a sort of trickle down of trauma and debauchery in which all the generational, generational trauma being passed down. Absolutely. But also a sense of entitled, untouchable sexual insatiability, like they're all fucking and basically getting away with it. I think, I think that's, I think that's maybe one way to look at it.

I don't know, I didn't have relationships with any of these people. Just to kind of pull back a little bit, the idea of generational trauma is not specific to my family. I think for me, my focus and my takeaway is, is like I was operating while asleep and allowing the traumas to drive the car.

And then this happened to me and it woke me the fuck up. And then I said, hold on, I have to instead of running with these things at my back, I got to turn and face these things so that I don't pass them on to my kids. Like I would like to be the last one to deal with this so that my kids don't have to. And so I don't have to for the rest of my life. And that's exactly what I did. You did that by getting the treatment. You feel as though that kind of was a major game changer for you that that's enabled you to sort of out. It started the process, but it's constant. The work is never done. You know, I didn't

walk into a treatment center and walk out healed and healthy. I mean, it is still an ongoing process and it will be for the rest of my life. It's an interesting question. To what extent is one's dysfunctionality part of oneself, right? Or indeed... Oh, it's a huge part of everyone's self. What do you believe when you strip away? Like, do you still consider yourself, you know, your beach ball analogy, like, do you still consider that your sexual interests remain the same to some extent?

That you consider yourself part of the kink scene? Do you still feel as though that it would be dangerous to sublimate or repress some of those appetites that might be more outre? Here's what I think my answer for this is. At that time in my life, I was doing almost everything in my life in a less than healthy way. There was an extremity to everything that I was doing, even the way that I ate. At that point in my life I was probably eating several Big Macs a week because I loved the way they taste.

So I would go eat Big Macs as an immediate gratification kind of thing. The unhealthiness in my life bled into everything. My sleep habits, my eating, the way I engaged with people. It was pervasive. Being in a healthier place in my life now, couldn't tell you the last time I engaged in some of the unhealthy behavior that I was doing before. And I'm really happy about that. Are there aspects to me that I cleared the dirt and debris away and the core of what it is is still the same? Sure. So what's left when you clear it away?

What do you... And again, I don't want to embarrass you or your kids. No, no, no. You're fine. You're fine. But I'm also specifically about... Because genuinely, I'm curious about, I mean, I've made documentaries about sex, about both healthy and healthy sexual impulses, but about sex workers. I've

also made about sexual predators. I have a kind of interest in almost like, just on the level of like, what can we not consent to? Like, and there's these questions about, well, where is the line? There was a case in Germany. Do you know about this guy who basically advertised for someone who he wanted to eat? Like, this is one of a few documented cases of actual cannibalism. Video taped the whole thing, invited him around, they took sleeping pills, they cut his penis off, cooked it in garlic and white wine, fried it and then they ate it together. And then the guy died. He was, I think he bled to death, but it wasn't legal. Like that's not legal. You cannot legally consent to be eaten and then killed.

That makes sense to me. Yeah. So within all of that, there's a spectrum of like, well, so what does healthy kinky sex look like? Do you know what I mean? To what extent is that part of of your lifestyle? How do you intend to make sure that you kind of keep that within the right parameters? I would say this to you. I think that it's probably not a stretch for me to ask you to understand that my sexuality, whatever it may be, has been so weaponized against me that discussing it in any sort of like open forum like this just doesn't feel safe. Yeah, I understand.

I mean, if we accept what you're saying, you have reason to feel, I would say, aggrieved, right? Like, and maybe angry. Here's what I would say that I feel about it. There were periods, specifically early on in all of this, where I was extremely angry. And I felt like I was taking advantage of all of these things. There was a period where I was very angry that all of this was happening. This person said I was a cannibal and this person said I was a rapist and everyone believed

this person without checking anything. I'm now at the place in my life where the only thing that I feel for everything that happened is grateful. They were a necessary step in my life to bring upon the death of a guy that I didn't even relate to, that I didn't identify as and that did nothing for me. It was this mask. It was a shell. It was a very hard on the old army. I'm sure there was a lot about the old army that you probably did like. Oh, there was a lot about him. I liked for sure. He was a fun dude. He was a likable dude. You know, up until this all happened, there wasn't anybody who had anything bad to say about me. Nobody. But at the same time, it wasn't me. That facade has been stripped away. I'm inviting

people into sort of the open, vulnerable, real version of me that's not glitz and glamour. That's not an artificial facade You know, I mean the the business now Hollywood Instagram influencers all of those things. It's kind of all bullshit Are you getting offered acting work? Mm-hmm. How much acting have you done since 2021 when it all broke? I just finished a movie that we shot in Arizona called Frontier Crucible and it's me and Thomas Jane and William H. Macy and then I'm gonna go do another movie in January and then I've got another movie in March. I've got a TV show that I was just offered. I've got offers coming in every week basically to the point where I'm having to turn down jobs.

This was Frontier Crucible, directed by Travis Mills. That's the one. He announced on Instagram, he's back. Always fun to shock the fake news regime media with an ice pick to their matrix. Chomp, chomp, Harpies. He's a character, But you know what? You probably needed a character

to give me my first job out of the gate, so. Yeah, exactly. Do you think there's a part of him that's basically up for taking a risk because he doesn't want, he's either not fussed about or actively wishes to discombobulate the mainstream or, you know, the cens the, the, the sensor is maybe one, maybe the other, maybe both. I don't know. You'd have to ask him. We

didn't have that specific conversation, so I can't speak for him. Has it changed your view? Cause you had spoken out, you'd spoken out, in fact, in House of Hammer, they show you wearing a times up pin. Um, you've spoken out against Harvey Weinstein back in the day. And I think I, I don't know, I think you used the phrase woke mob in one of your, one of your comments that you had the idea that the woke mob had come for you. I'm just wondering, has it given you a different view of the culture of me too, of anything like that? I would say now I'm much less likely to accept anything I see or hear at face value. I think that there is a level of critical thought that I now have, having seen the other

side of it. Who said it? I think it was Reagan who said, trust but verify. I think that blindly trusting anything that you hear, either from the farthest right or farthest left or dead center, trusting anything that you hear at face value without wanting to do your own research or wanting to confirm I think is dangerous. And I think it puts you at the subject of wins, tossing you all over the place. It was said that Robert Downey Jr. paid for your rehab. Is that true?

No. Did you read that or have I misremembered it? No, I read that. I read that No, I read that I read that somewhere I don't know where that came from but At the time I still had insurance. So my insurance covered it. Did he reach out and support you in some way? Yes, yeah Did you have to think about that? I thought about whether or not I want to pull anyone into this.

This is that burning house thing again. I think that anyone who expressed support of me put themselves in the line of fire. If you've got a couple more minutes, I'd love to keep going just for a few more. Is that all right? Sure. One thing that came up when all of this was being reported was that you'd been spotted, that you were sort of laid so low that you'd been spotted selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands. Can

you shed any light on that? I loved it. It was fun. I mean it was really kind of the first desk job that I've ever had in my entire life. But by the way, like, I was at the point in my life where things were so bleak that having anything to do felt amazing. So when I look at, you know, because I was also the greenskeeper for a school at one point, I helped manage. A school where?

In the Caymans as well? In the Cayman Islands. I sort of helped manage an apartment building and I sold timeshares. And honestly, I was having the time of my life. I went to work every day. I enjoyed the people I was working with. I got to wear my little khaki pants and a polo shirt and sell timeshares.

I loved it. There's no shame in it for me. I loved it. Will Barron And then what the Cayman government then said, oh, we think he's morally too dubious to do this anymore. So did that happen? What happened exactly?

Oh, I applied for multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple work visas in the Cayman Islands and was rejected every single time, even though my dad was Caymanian, even though my dad had given a lot back to the island. But I also understand that if half of the things that were said about me online were true, if just half of them were true, I probably wouldn't want me somewhere either. So you persona non grata there at this point can still go back. I can't live there. NDAs. What's the deal with getting NDAs before you hook up with someone? Is that the way it's done in Hollywood now? I think NDAs are pretty much bullshit. They're non-enforceable. The only people who think NDAs actually do anything are probably not the smartest people in the world. Was that a Hollywood thing? Stars and celebrities would be like, yeah, if we're going to get together, you need to sign some paperwork.

Sure. I mean, I knew people who were in the film business who, before they interacted with someone sexually, would make them sign an NDA and then would make them fill out a consent form of list exactly the things that you consent to. I never did that. I would imagine that that's a bit of a buzzkill in a sort of like sexually heated situation of like, okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, okay, real quick, just fill out this paperwork. But you know what? I mean, that's, that's where we got to. That's what people felt they had to do to be safe. Your mum paid for you to have a vasectomy for your birthday. She did. We talked about it on the podcast. Yeah.

That's pretty weird. Different strokes for different folks. Did you ask for it or she offered it? It was born out of a conversation where,'m sure I said, I have two beautiful children and I'm good. I don't want any more kids. I think that probably snowballed into a conversation of like, I would probably love to get one of these but I can't afford one.

It probably turned into, well is that what you want for your birthday? Sure, that sounds great, thanks. Was it painful? No. I mean, you know, you don't even go under. You can go under if you want, but they just do local and they just get right in there, snip, and you're done. Doesn't affect sensation or anything?

Doesn't even affect output. I was gonna say, I was trying to find a way of asking that, output is Output is the same. Yeah well I mean you know I think I'm not a doctor but I think only like five to ten percent of what you actually ejaculate is semen if even that high so the rest of it is just prostate fluid. I mean that's why they say you know men should ejaculate regularly for prostate health just kind of clear it out, keep it moving. Are you in a relationship at the moment? No. Very much happy to not be in a relationship,

to have control of my own schedule, to be with my kids and to not have to worry about anyone else's emotional well-being and to just be okay being alone. So how do you ensure regular ejaculations then? I'm sure you can imagine. Yeah. Probably the same way anybody does if they're not in a relationship. Taking self-love to a whole new level. How often do you masturbate?

That's what the world wants to know. Well, no, I'm asking for your prostate health. I'm very concerned. I mean, they say I think men need to ejaculate about 20 times a month and it reduces your chance of prostate cancer by something like 60%. So I'd like to see you somewhere close to that number. times a month, and it reduces your chance of prostate cancer by something like 60%. So I'd like to see you somewhere close to that number. I find the subject of masturbation kind of interesting. Interesting in what way? Well, that actually there's a sort of an element of the so-called red-pilled community, the community of men's rights. They've sort of

revised the view of masturbation. They sort of feel they're very anti-porn and anti-masturbation. Anti-porn, I understand. Anti-porn, I mean porn is bad for our brains. It's terrible for us. But I think that porn and masturbating can be kept separately. You know, I mean, there's an aspect of masturbating that's just about self-pleasuring that doesn't need to be an inundation of graphic images that desensitize us. Or pervert, if you will, our perception of women or our perception of sex. I think that those two things can be kept very separately. What do you feel is the damaging part of pornography? I think that people are learning how to have sex from pornography.

When pornography specifically is not sex education, it's sex entertainment. If you learned how to be a man from only watching old Westerns, you'd probably grow up being a gunslinger, where if someone looked at you wrong, you shot them. I think that pornography also desensitizes us and also makes us hypercritical

of the partner we might be with. Well, that woman on porn had tits like this, or her ass was like this, or she did this and that. You know, it's like we build this up, this idea, and I think it perverts our perception of reality and makes reality less satisfying. And I think you get a lot of guys who sort of end up anhedonic about the whole thing because of pornography. Anhedonic, meaning sort of pleasureless from the Greek and hedonia right and without and hedonia Do you feel like you've been cancelled to use the buzzword and if so, what have you been cancelled from?

Hmm Yeah, I would say I would say that I would say yeah that I got cancelled Literally, I was fired all my representation cancelled. I mean, literally I was fired. All my representation cancelled working with me. But I also think that cancelled is a weird code word for this whole Hollywood system. That instead of saying that I was cancelled, I would say that I was forcefully removed from the system and now I'm very grateful to have found my own life with my own meaning independent of that system.

Now it's me and producer Jerry sitting in my room doing this because we enjoy it, because we like to. We didn't need anyone to say yes to us. We didn't need anyone to give us permission. We just started doing it. And that's something that I never got when I was working in the Hollywood system. If Woody Allen offered you a role in his new movie, would you take it? Would I work with Woody Allen? I mean at this point, I don't know that I'd buy into any of the cancel, we need to dis

and that, like I don't know. I mean I know that this is like a trick question and I know there's no right way to answer this question. But I think, I think, well, no, because like, if I say no, I would never work with Woody Allen. Then all I'm doing is saying, I believe in this system that cancels people. I think what I would honestly do is I'd say, I'd like to sit down with him first

and I'd like to talk to him. And if I walked away from that conversation going, you know what, I think that he's a good man. I don't know that I believe everything that people are saying about him. Then being someone who had the world say a bunch of stuff about me that I knew wasn't true, I'd go, oof, I get what that feels like, that sucks.

All right, yeah, let's do it. But if I walked away from the conversation going, I didn't get a good vibe, maybe there is fire where there is smoke, then I wouldn't do it. I forgot to mention your co-star is Kevin Spacey, and it's produced by Harvey Weinstein. Hahaha, oof. What are they paying? Pfft. What are they paying? All right, thanks man. I appreciate it. Did you want to? I was gonna say, did you have anything else you wanted to say? I should... No, I mean, I don't love the way the interview started, just to be perfectly honest.

I'm not crazy about drudging up all of this stuff, because for me, a lot of these issues have been resolved, whether it be legally or within myself, and I feel like a lot of those waters have settled. I think doing things like that stirs up the water again unnecessarily. It definitely wasn't my favorite beginning. I'm glad we moved past that and got to a place where we could have a civil

normal conversation. Like that felt good. But dredging up all that stuff, like, I don't love it. I hear you and I sensed that during the chat. I think in the court of public opinion, the jury is still out. But my thing now is like the court of public opinion, like, pick anything that the court of public opinion has an opinion on, and there's a very good chance that they will not be fully informed. There's a very good chance they don't have the full story, and there's also a very good

chance that they're probably wrong. So I don't pander to the court of public opinion anymore. It's not anything that I feel I have to do. I certainly don't let the court of public opinion determine or run anything about my life anymore. I did that for a long time I would say that I lived my life Based on other people's fear for my life. Well, you can't take that job because then oh you would know but you can't do Oh, no, no, you can't you can't play a gay character Oh, no, no, no, like all of those things that still exists and I think that for a long time I let other people's fear

those things. That still exists. And I think that for a long time, I let other people's fear dictate my life and how it went. And I think a lot of that fear is unsubstantiated. I think a lot of it is bullshit. And I think a lot of the court of public opinion is really still the public opinion of the court because we keep drudging things back up again. I'm very happy that in my life, I feel like I've moved through all of that. And there are no aspects of my life where that stuff still touches my day to day, other than the fact that it highlighted for me exactly how much work I needed to do on myself, which is still a daily process. And that's my journey. My journey is not convincing anybody. My journey is not explaining myself. My journey is not advocating for myself.

I just, that's just not where I'm at. I mean, I get that on things like this, that stuff needs to come up, but I'm just very happy to report that that's not a part of my life anymore. I hear you. It's tough because I get that this isn't a therapeutic space and you don't owe me accountability, certainly not in the sense of your personal growth. But nevertheless, anytime you do an interview, I think with anyone who takes on the burden of attempting to address the narrative as it exists in the public space now.

This is what you will be going through. Yeah, and I get it. I get it. Okay, here I am back. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the episode. It's obviously a little different from some of the others we've done. I have an appetite for going into places that are difficult, morally complex or even deeply controversial. And in a world where we are trying to be accepting of, you know of people who think otherwise or even just being as it were understanding about different lifestyles like we don't want to stigmatize people who have tastes other than our own. The kink world has been through historically Historically, a lot of stigmatization. And there's also, I think, attention there.

At what point does consensual abuse become something more complicated? And there's clearly a place where all of these things are hard to police in a way that feels fair. But nevertheless, that's what we have to do. He said, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Do you know the source? If you said Shakespeare, you'd be wrong. It was actually the 17th century dramatist William Congreve.

I'd give you the exact quote, but I can't be bothered. If you're keeping a bingo card inappropriate, here we are. You can mark off Woody Allen and also the word woke, which I think should be on the bingo card. Don't you? What else do we say? I mentioned the text messages allegedly sent from Effie to Armie concerning her working in a sex dungeon. Effie denies saying this. The quote is, I have never worked in a dungeon and I have never told Armie I've ever worked at a dungeon. Armie mentioned that the image of the bite mark he allegedly gave Courtney Vucekovec had been removed from the House of Hammer documentary on the basis that it was an image

from Pinterest. It's worth noting that Courtney maintains that Armie sent this photo to her. This is the quote from Courtney. The bite mark shown was a photo sent by Armie sent this photo to her. This is the quote from Courtney. The bite mark shown was a photo sent by Armie within our archive text thread. I believed it to have been a photo of me given that I have dozens of photos depicting his abuse on my body. House of Hammer. I think I can say it's worth a watch. It's a well-made documentary series, I would say. Armie also claimed that Effie told him she wanted his nine-year-old daughter to be raped, and cited her tweets as evidence of this. On her Twitter account, Effie has posted a

screenshot of an alleged exchange with Armie, saying, I honestly can't wait for your daughter to grow up and karma to happen." And also tweeted that, Visit spotify.com slash resources. I think that might be about it. Other than credits, the producer was Millie Chu. The assistant producer was Amelia Gill. The production manager was Francesca Bassett. And the executive producer was Aaron Fellows. The music in this series was by Miguel de Oliveira.

Thanks to Abbas Media Law for their assistance on this program. This is a MIND Mindhouse production for Spotify.