PICTURED: Disgraced actor Armie Hammer looks somber as he’s seen for first time since death of oil baron father Michael… who ‘cut him off financially’ in wake of police investigation into sex scandals
- Armie Hammer was seen for first time since father Michael’s death at 67 following a prolonged cancer battle Wednesday
- The oil baron died Sunday, as confirmed by a rep for the family
- ‘Michael Hammer has passed away after a long, hard fight with cancer,’ the statement read, with the spokesperson adding that Michael ‘is now at peace’
- Armie was ousted from the A-list Hollywood scene in 2021 after alleged messages he’d sent detailing rape and cannibalism fantasies were leaked online
- He was also accused of sexual misconduct by a number of women who he’d allegedly dated/slept with while still married to TV host Elizabeth Chambers
- One of the women claimed she’d been ‘violently raped’ by the Call Me By Your name star, which prompted the LAPD to open an investigation
- Following the allegations – which Armie has vehemently denied – he was dropped from his agency WME along with future film projects
- This past summer, Armie was seen selling timeshares at a resort in the Cayman Islands because his dad allegedly ‘cut him off’ financially
- Robert Downey Jr. has reportedly been supporting the embattled star by paying for his stint in rehab and allowing him to live in one of his homes
- Armie and ex-wife Elizabeth split in 2020 after 10 years of married and two children together
- The divorce was filed by Elizabeth in July, just six months before the scandal broke
Disgraced actor Armie Hammer was seen for the first time following his businessman father Michael’s passing at age 67 after a prolonged battle with cancer.
The Call Me By Your Name star, 36, looked somber while making his way through his Venice neighborhood on foot Wednesday.
Armie has yet to comment publicly on Michael’s death, though a family rep did confirm the news Tuesday.
Spotted: Disgraced actor Armie Hammer was seen for the first time following his businessman father Michael’s passing at age 67 after a prolonged battle with cancer. The Call Me By Your Name star, 36, looked somber while making his way through his Venice neighborhood on foot Wednesday
Armie’s hair looked unkempt and he had a noticeable handlebar mustache.
He sported a stained and tattered graphic tee which he styled with slim pants and white Birkenstock sandals.
Armie was captured wearing the exact same outfit on October 25.
The Man From Uncle actor strolled solo through the desolate seaside community, with just a single female jogger passing by him.
Silence: Armie has yet to comment publicly on Michael’s death, though a family rep did confirm the news Tuesday
Worn in: He sported a stained and tattered graphic tee
Hammer’s father, who worked in investment banking before taking over family firm Occidental Petroleum, passed away on Sunday.
A family representative confirmed the news Tuesday, saying in a statement: ‘Michael Hammer has passed away after a long, hard fight with cancer.’
The spokesperson added the millionaire oil mogul ‘is now at peace.’
Aside from his 36-year-old son Armie, Michael is survived by his wife Misty and younger son Viktor, 34. He also leaves behind an ex-wife in Dru Ann Mobley, Armie’s and Viktor’s mother. The pair divorced in 2012 after 27 years of marriage.
Unkempt: Armie’s hair looked unkempt and he had a noticeable handlebar mustache
The gloom was in full force this afternoon, with the wind whipping through Armie’s hair
Desolate: The Man From Uncle actor strolled solo through the desolate seaside community, with just a single female jogger passing by him
Best known for his ties to Occidental, Michael reportedly inherited a $40million dollar fortune from his late grandfather, industrialist Armand Hammer, who ran the company until his death in 1990.
His death comes just months after his actor son – once among Hollywood’s A-list elite but now a struggling addict at the center of several scandals – traveled back to LA from the Cayman Islands, where he was spotted selling timeshares at a resort in July.
A source at the time said Armie was working the gig because he ‘needs the money’ because his father ‘won’t help him anymore and he’s been cut off.’
That decision came shortly after Armie found himself at the center of a LAPD investigation, when a woman claimed the actor ‘violently raped’ her.
Go-to: Armie was captured wearing the exact same outfit on October 25
It has since been revealed that his late father also led a checkered life, being embroiled in one New York City ‘s biggest art fraud scandals and reportedly keeping a sex dungeon in the Armand Hammer Foundation headquarters in Carpinteria.
Insiders have also claimed the businessman had ‘the mindset of a teenage boy’, as well as a twisted sex drive that echoes similar allegations surrounding his embattled son – who, if not for his recent trouble, would likely inherit his family’s empire.
Michael is the son of Julian Hammer – a hotheaded Hammer scion who killed a man over a gambling debt in the 50s – and wife Sue Kane, who was from Texas.
Julian allegedly sexually abused his daughter Casey, and did not follow in his industrialist father’s footsteps like his son eventually would.
Armie Hammer’s father Michael has died aged 67 after a prolonged battle with cancer, TMZ reports
The businessman, who worked in investment banking before taking over family firm Occidental Petroleum, passed away on Sunday, the website said
The family also had roots to the old Russian empire, with Michael’s paternal grandmother, Russian-born actress Baroness Olga von Root, being the daughter of a czarist general.
The strange past of the Hammer family was unearthed in a Vanity Fair exposé last year which claimed many of the men in the well-to-do family, going back as far as five generations, had a unmistakable ‘dark side.’
It provided a backdrop to Armie’s life and upbringing, and sheds light on why the actor’s recent scandals – including recently leaked text messages from the actor to a woman he was trying to woo in which he aired twisted fantasies of cannibalism and BDSM with his would-be lover.
Several women have since spoke out accusing the Lone Ranger star of emotional abuse and similar violent sexual escapades.
One of those accusers, 22-year-old Paige Lorenze, told the magazine Armie had confided in her about the ‘dark stuff’ in his family and was ‘proud’ of it.
Michael inherited the family business empire from his grandfather Armand, who made his fortune investing his third wife’s money in Occidental Petroleum
Armie Hammer as a baby with grandfather Armand Hammer, Julian Hammer and Michael Hammer. Michael Hammer took almost the entire family fortune and was embroiled in New York City’s biggest art fraud
Lorenze claimed Armie’s mother Dru – who reportedly helped tame MIchael’s playboy lifestyle during their marriage – confided in her that she was fearful her son was lost to ‘the devil’.
Michael, meanwhile, inherited the family business empire from his grandfather Armand, who made his fortune investing his third wife’s money in Occidental starting in the late 50s.
According to Vanity Fair, cash also came from ‘wide-ranging grifts, including laundering money, using artwork to fund Soviet espionage, bribing his way into the oil business and knocking off Fabergé eggs’.
Armand would then leave most of his family members high and dry when he died in 1990, apart from apple of his eye Michael, who took the lion’s share of his grandfather’s fortune.
While her brother Michael inherited two art galleries, two foundations and a sizable chunk of the multi-million dollar fortune, his sister Casey – Julian’s daughter and Armie’s estranged aunt – told Vanity Fair her father received just $250,000 of the fortune.
The divvying of the magnate’s assets came as a shock and led to rifts that wrangled through the courts.
He was embroiled in a $70 million fraudulent ring selling counterfeit paintings going back to 1994 at the family-owned Knoedler Gallery
Last year, Casey said she had just $100 in her savings account and was holding down a job at Home Depot due to her father Julian, Arman’s only son, being disinherited years before, due to out-of-control behavior that reportedly saw him abuse members of the family.
‘If you would have told me in my 20s that I would end up financially challenged, single, and working at Home Depot, I would have bet you a million dollars that wouldn’t have happened,’ she said.
Casey detailed the dark secrets about her family’s history in a Discovery+ docuseries titled ‘House of Hammer’, including allegations her father would shoot guns at her and allegedly battered their mother, Glenna Hammer, leaving her covered in blood, before their divorce.
She said she thought Michael could help, given his fortune. She said just one of the family paintings he has would help her get on her feet – however, before his death Tuesday, the pair never reconciled.
Michael’s mother Glenna, meanwhile previously told The Washington Post her son ‘forgot about us’ after he came into the money from his grandfather in the early 90s.
Armand Hammer, Michael’s oil mangate grandfather and Armie’s great-grandfather, in 1977. He made the family fortune and snubbed most of the family when he died in 1990
Armand, Julian, Michael and Armie Hammer. Insiders claim Michael keeps a ‘sex throne’ or as he allegedly calls it the ‘naughty chair’ in the Armand Hammer Foundation HQ
At the time, he also started offloading some of the family’s legacy, handing the Hammer Museum to the UCLA art department in 1994 and asking the Metropolitan Museum of Art to remove Armand’s name from the Hall of Arms and Armor so he didn’t have to pay the remaining $1 million.
Michael then moved his family – Dru, Armie and Armie’s brother Viktor – to the Cayman Islands before returning to California around a decade later.
In 2011 – at the height of Armie’s stardom – Michael’s galleries became embroiled in a huge art scam that went back almost two decades when the Knoedler Gallery and its former director Ann Freedman were sued for selling a fake Jackson Pollock painting.
Michael had inherited the Knoedler Gallery in New York City from his grandfather, who had bought the business in 1971 for $2.5million.
Accusations of a forgery ring surfaced in 2009 but only became public in 2011 when the gallery closed and hedge fund executive Pierre Lagrange sued the gallery and its director after he was sold the forged Pollock for $17million.
A probe into the allegations uncovered an alleged $70million fraudulent ring selling counterfeit paintings going back to 1994.
Aside from his 36-year-old son Armie (right), Michael is survived by his wife Misty (not pictured) and younger son Viktor (left), 34
It turned out the paintings were actually the work of a relatively unknown artist in Queens.
Ten lawsuits were settled and one case went to trial in 2016 with Sotheby’s chairman Domenico De Sole and his wife Eleanor accusing the gallery of selling them a fake Mark Rothko for $8.3million.
Although Michael was not personally accused of wrongdoing in the fraud ring, during court testimony it was claimed he had been using the gallery’s funds for his personal expenses including two luxury cars and a trip to Paris.
But Michael never answered to the allegations as the case was settled just an hour before he was due to testify.
One source told Vanity Fair this was all part of the family’s penchant for ‘spending other people’s money’ as they called them the ‘lucky sperm club.’
‘We call these guys the lucky sperm club here,’ the insider said. Never accomplished anything. They know a whole lot about spending other people’s money.’
Other habits that allegedly run in the family include a fondness for kinky sex, with a former friend of Michael’s saying he was ‘not the least bit surprised’ when he heard the allegations about Armie’s sex life.
Chambers and Hammer were snapped at the Parisian premiere of his film Call Me By Your Name in 2018
The friend – as well as two other sources – told Vanity Fair Michael bragged about having a sex throne inside the family business’s HQ.
The chair is reportedly about ‘seven feet high, features a chair with a hole in the seat, a cage underneath, and a hook’ with the Hammer coat of arms painted on the seat.
According to the report, a smiling Michael is pictured in a photo sitting on top of the throne while holding the head of a smiling blonde woman, who is sitting in the cage below.
Counsel for Michael and the Armand Hammer Foundation told Vanity Fair the claims about his sex throne, drug and alcohol use, finances, and history with women were ‘absurd’.
‘These questions, which ask about unsolicited gag gifts sent by friends, conduct that sounds pretty typical of recently-divorced people, and entirely legal financial transactions that were properly accounted for, are absurd,’ said the counsel.
But friends told the outlet he ‘has the mindset of a teenage boy’, would send x-rated photos to his friends and embarked on ‘a string of women, illicit substances, and tattoos’ after his split from Dru.
It was an apparent bust-up with his son that contributed to hopping on a plane out of the Cayman Islands last summer.
It was a move said to have triggered divorce proceedings by Armie’s wife Elizabeth Chambers and the damaging claims brought by several women.
Courtney Vucekovich, who claimed in January Armie was into ‘master-slave fetishes’ and told her he wanted to break and eat her ribs, told Vanity Fair Armie confided in her he was escaping his ‘crazy family’ after almost getting into fist fights with his father.
Armie and Michael had been holing up in a luxury villa in the Cayman Islands under lockdown alongside Michael’s latest wife Misty, Elizabeth and Armie’s two kids.
‘Within the first five minutes, he was basically like, this all goes back to my horrible childhood,’ said Vucekovich.
Armie Hammer, 35, was seen over the summer in Los Angeles with estranged wife Elizabeth Chambers, 39, and their two kids, Harper, seven, and Ford, five
Hammer took the children to meet up with Chambers, who appeared sporty in black biker shorts, a t-shirt and sneakers in the summer
‘It’s not the most romantic thing, but we bonded over past trauma.’
His departure in the middle of the pandemic was reportedly the ‘final straw’ for Elizabeth who had endured years of infidelity, a friend told Vanity Fair, and she filed for divorce the following month.
Vucekovich revealed new details about her relationship with Armie telling Vanity Fair he made her ‘feel bad for him’ before he ‘love-bombs you like crazy… And then he starts the manipulation and the darker stuff.’
She told Vanity Fair she was left ‘with regret’ following one encounter after she said she agreed to ‘a bondage scenario that I was not comfortable with.’
While Armie allegedly opened up about tensions with his father, one of the other women to come forward in January 2021 claimed Armie’s mother confided in her she was ‘so worried’ about her son and feared the devil was trying to ‘take’ him.
Dru allegedly told Lorenze she was ‘so worried about Armie and so grateful for me because she felt like I was a good influence on him.
‘And that she just wanted him to accept God back into his life. And that he had just been fighting everything for a long time.’ Armie’s parents are only part of the picture.
Scandal and shocking tales have rocked the family for at least five generations, starting with Dr. Julius Hammer, Armie’s great-great-grandfather.
He was a central figure in the US Communist Party, who was convicted of manslaughter for performing a botched abortion on the wife of a Russian diplomat in 1919 where she later died.
While in prison, his son Armand – the man behind the family empire – took over his pharma business Allied Drug and was personally endorsed by Vladimir Lenin in a letter to Joseph Stalin.
Armand, who married three times, later tried to distance himself from his Soviet past and reportedly mingled with senior political figures including Senator Al Gore Sr., attended the presidential inaugurations of FDR, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush and hung out with Prince Charles.
He was pardoned by Bush in 1989 after he made an illegal contribution to Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign which is said to have helped pay toward the Watergate scandal.
Hammer returned from the Caymans after he was mobbed by media when photos showing him working as a timeshare salesman went viral
Earlier in July, Hammer’s attorney denied that the actor was working as a salesman, following a viral tweet with an image that that showed his face on a pamphlet as concierge for a hotel
His son Julian, Armie’s grandfather, carried on the legacy for scandal when he killed longtime friend Bruce Whitlock in Los Angeles in 1955.
The FBI said the killing was over a gambling debt and he was charged with first-degree manslaughter but the charges were dropped.
According to Vanity Fair, Armand sent $50,000 in cash to a lawyer in Los Angeles before the charges were dismissed.
Julian has also been accused of sexually abusing his daughter Casey when she was a child.
Casey made the claims in her 2015 memoir Surviving My Birthright. She also claimed Julian was abusive to other members of the family.
Jan Ward, Casey and Michael’s half sister, declined to comment on the allegations when approached by Vanity Fair.
‘I will say that I love my family very much which includes my brother, my sister, and my nephews…I do have wonderful memories of us kids spending every summer at Laguna Beach with our Grandma Olga and spending the holidays with our parents and grandparents,’ she said in a statement.
Armie Hammer was staying at a home owned by Robert Downey Jr. in Malibu where he was also attending AA meetings. Pictured: Downey Jr’s sprawling seven-acre compound. It’s unclear whether Hammer is staying at this property or another owned by the Ironman star
‘We were all blessed to be able to attend excellent schools thanks to Grandpa Hammer who was a great supporter of education.
‘Our family taught us the value of hard work and I have had a fulfilling career and a wonderful family life.’
The new ‘House of Hammer’ docuseries, produced by Discovery+ and Hammer’s aunt Casey, which concluded last month, expands on the alleged dark history of the Hammer clan.
The documentary reiterates claims from Hammer’s former girlfriends, who said the actor abused them through BDSM sex, with one woman known only as Effie claiming he raped her during their four-year affair.
An anonymous source who worked as an assistant to the actor also claimed Hammer forced him into a strip club at 10 a.m. to get him a lap dance, which the employee was uncomfortable doing.
‘I was very against it, I didn’t want to do it. He made me believe that I had no choice. I could’ve walked away, but I was scared of the stature of it all.’
The man also recalled one instance when Hammer drove through a residential area at 140 mph while ‘inebriated.’
‘It would scare me like crazy,’ he said.
The documentary also dives into the alleged corrupt and ruthless nature of family patriarch Armand Hammer, whose former media consultant dubbed him ‘the most satanic man’ of the second half of the 20th century.
The documentary is the latest chapter in the unravelling of the former Hollywood A-lister whose career was felled in 2021 by sexual assault allegations and an ensuing investigation from the Los Angeles Police Department that led him to spending months in the Cayman Islands as a timeshare salesman.
The first episode of the series, titled ‘Love Bomb,’ focused on Hammer’s tumultuous love life and apparent obsession with BDSM, as it opens with an Instagram voice message from the actor regarding a wager to an unknown recipient.
‘This is going to be the bet: If I won, I get to come over to your house with my bag of goodies. Inside my bag of goodies, there are several different bundles of Shibari rope; Shibari is the Japanese art of rope bondage,’ Hammer says in the recording.
‘My bet was going to involve showing up at your place and completely tying you up and incapacitating you, then being able to do whatever I wanted to every single hole in your body until I was done with you.’
A series of texts Hammer sent to one of his accusers. It was anonymously shared in 2021 when he was first accused. It is unclear who he sent it to
A pair of texts Armie Hammer allegedly sent to Courtney Vucekovich were revealed in the documentary that disturbed the ex-girlfriend
In the episode, Courtney Vucekovich, of Dallas, recounts her relationship with Hammer, saying it felt like a ‘fairy tale’ before things took a dark turn.
She said that while she indulged the actor in his BDSM fantasies, Hammer took things too far during a three-week vacation they took near Palm Springs.
‘It was something that has never been done to me,’ Vucekovich said, refusing to elaborate. ‘It’s very degrading and very belittling. I don’t like to put it out there.’
On another road trip, she claims she suffered bruises and injuries from being tied up by Hammer.
‘He puts on this creepy playlist and just, like, the ropes were around [my] neck, wrists, ankles and behind [my] back. I had bruises. I hated it,’ she said. ‘I understand that if this is your fantasy, if this is your thing, more power to you. I didn’t like it.’
Also appearing in the episode was Julia Morrison, a model and actress, who said Hammer contacted her on Instagram after she posted a photoshoot picture of her being choked.
‘I’ve wanted to tie you up since I saw those goddamn pictures and messaged you about it,’ Hammer allegedly wrote.
Morrison also shared another message, where Hammer allegedly shared another disturbing fantasy about her.
‘I haven’t really digested this one,’ Morrison says flipping through her phone and reading aloud a text from Hammer, ‘I have a fantasy of having someone prove their love and devotion and tying them up in a public place at night making their body free use. And seeing if they will f*** strangers for me.’
The Hammer family’s dark history is detailed in a recent Discovery+ docuseries titled ‘House of Hammer.’ The documentary claims the disgraced actor was obsessed with BDSM, forced a lap dance on a male assistant and drove drunk at 140mph through a residential area
In the documentary, accusers Courtney Vucekovich (left) and Julia Morrison (right) describe their allegedly violent relationships with Hammer in harrowing detail. They shared stories about his alleged BDSM and cannibalism fetish
Vucekovich and Morrison also share text messages they say Hammer sent, describing more violent sexual fantasies he wanted them to play out – including the infamous ‘I’m 100% a cannibal’ text.
Hammer also allegedly told the he wanted to remove their ribs, barbecue them and eat them.
Paige Lorenze, who was in a relationship with Hammer, also accused him of slicing the letter ‘A’ into one her thigh before sucking the blood out of her fresh wound.
‘He’s obsessed with meat,’ she said. ‘I brushed it off but I do believe that he was serious.’
Hammer has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and claims that all his previous relationships were consensual.
The second and third episode went further into detail about Casey Hammer’s claims against her family, who she said perpetuated a history of violence that ultimately affected her nephew.
The new ‘House of Hammer’ docuseries explored the allegations of sexual assault and ‘cannibalism’ fetish that felled actor Armie Hammer’s career, seeing his descent from movie star to a so-called ‘monster’
The documentary features the generational sins of the Hammer clan as recounted by the disgraced actor’s aunt, Casey (pictured) who came forward with her stories following the claims against her nephew
Casey, who was was mostly ignored by in her grandfather’s multi-million-dollar will in 1990 – reported to be worth about $800million – said violence runs in the family.
‘On the outside we were a perfect family. But magnify Succession a million times, and it as my family,’ she said, ‘If you believe about making deals with the devil, the Hammers are top of the totem pole.
‘Every generation in my family has been involved in dark misdeeds, and it just gets worse and worse and worse.’
Hammer’s great-grandfather and namesake, Armand Hammer, made millions in the oil industry but left his family deeply divided in his 1990 will, which favored some and slighted others.
Hammer’s father, Michael, was inherited the bulk of the fortune, while Casey and her father received $250,000 and $500,000 respectively.
Violence and scandal has plagued the family throughout its stories history, with Armand being convicted of manslaughter in 1920 over a botched abortion he tried to administer, and Hamer’s grandfather, Julian, killing a man in 1955 over a gambling debt. He dodged those charges by claiming self-defense.
Somewhat ironically, director Luca Guadagino and co-star Timothee Chalamet from Hammer’s star turn in Call Me By Your Name are set to release a film about cannibalism called Bones and All.
‘I realized this afterward when I started to be told of some of these innuendos on social media.’
He added: ‘Any link with anything else exists only in the realm of social media, with which I do not engage.’
Accuser Courtney Vucekovich appears in the documentary. She said her relationship with Hammer started out idyllic but went suddenly south as she claims she suffered injuries and bruises from BDSM sex with the actor
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