#andrew brettler

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Colleen Ballinger's lawyer was prince Andrew's lawyer? Also Bill Cosby's, Danny Masterson's, Horatio Sanz, Armie Hammers...

[itsbansheebitch]

lmao the added context is putting me in the dirt, like damn, Vanity Fair really said, "I'm going to support a groomer and pretend nothing happened!"

Like seriously, did they think they could just reach out to Colleen's lawyers, talk shit about Adam, discredit her victims, and @ ADAM on Instagram and then Andrew Quintana is surprised when Adam has shit to say??? Like, dude, YOU ARE the one who REACHED OUT.

And you know what this bastard does? He turns off the comments on his most recent Instagram posts, and when Adam comments on his latest post that still has comments on, Andrew turns off ALL comments, and then BLOCKS ADAM???

Like dude, you can't talk about "misinformation" and "trusted sources" when referring to your OWN ARTICLE and then NOT back that shit up. Pure disrespect from a 2023 graduate. Unbelievable.

[news-folds]

Who Is Andrew Brettler? Tiffany Haddish Hires Same Lawyer as Prince Andrew

Who Is Andrew Brettler? Tiffany Haddish Hires Same Lawyer as Prince Andrew

Actress and comedian Tiffany Haddish has hired Hollywood entertainment lawyer Andrew Brettler, who previously represented Prince Andrew, after she was accused of child sexual abuse in a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, which was first reported by The Daily Beast, alleges that Haddish and fellow comedian Aries Spears sexually abused a girl and her brother, who were 14 and 7 years old at the time, in two…

[news-tey]

Who Is Andrew Brettler? Tiffany Haddish Hires Same Lawyer as Prince Andrew

Who Is Andrew Brettler? Tiffany Haddish Hires Same Lawyer as Prince Andrew

Actress and comedian Tiffany Haddish has hired Hollywood entertainment lawyer Andrew Brettler, who previously represented Prince Andrew, after she was accused of child sexual abuse in a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, which was first reported by The Daily Beast, alleges that Haddish and fellow comedian Aries Spears sexually abused a girl and her brother, who were 14 and 7 years old at the time, in two…

[theseshipsshallsail]

I'm actually afraid that with the jonah hill thing going on strong in sm and that bulgarian weirdo getting more traction again by making up more bs that someone iss gonna try and accuse Armie of something again and he's investigated again. How are peolpe still believing her when most outlets are starting to admit that her bs ss were never verified?

Nonny, the deluded fuckwit is currently tagging a fake Andrew Brettler account and screaming she's been stalked by Kent Schaffer because he replied to someone else on a post she commented on.

She's irrelevant.

Facts are facts are facts.

Everyone BTS, the LADA included, knows EXACTLY what really happened, so unless Lying Lizzie wants to try something with someone else and lose custody completely (maybe she wants to free up time for her busy binge-drinking schedule, idk) it's onwards and upwards for Armie Hammer.

[ausetkmt]

Tiffany Haddish's Ex-Friend Defends Serving Her Legal Papers Outside Comedy Club, Says Actress 'Refuses' to Apologize for Extortion Allegations

Trizah Morris explained why Tiffany Haddish was served outside of the Laugh Factory.

Tiffany Haddish's former friend defended serving the actress with legal papers outside of the Laugh Factory in Hollywood, telling RadarOnline.comexclusively that Haddish has yet to apologize for accusing her of extortion.

RadarOnline.com told you first that Trizah Morris had filed a defamation lawsuit one year after her children sued the comedian.

Haddish was served around 6:45 PM on August 28, 2023, allowing Morris' $1 million lawsuit to move forward in court.

"Tiffany Haddish was dodging service at her residence, so we had to serve her at the Laugh Factory," Morris told RadarOnline.com in a statement on Thursday.

Morris is suing Haddish and fellow stand-up comic Aries Spears, detailing in court docs how she was close with the Girls Trip star from 2011 to 2020 but was not friends with Spears despite meeting him in 2014.

She accused Haddish of grooming her kids and having them perform sexually inappropriate skits in 2014.

Morris is the mother of two adults who sued Haddish and Spears for child sexual abuse over sketches they filmed with the comedians while they were minors.

Jane Doe alleged Haddish had her film a scene where she simulated oral sex and also claimed her brother was used for a skit with Spears about a pedophile's fantasy.

Haddish's attorney, Andrew Brettler, previously told TMZ the lawsuit was an extortion attempt last fall, claiming, "Plaintiff's mother, Trizah Morris, has been trying to assert these bogus claims against Ms. Haddish for several years."

The comedians denied all allegations of wrongdoing and labeled the lawsuit a shakedown for money.

"While this sketch was intended to be comedic, it wasn't funny at all – and I deeply regret having agreed to act in it," Haddish also said. "I really look forward to being able to share a lot more about this situation as soon as I can."

As we reported at the time, the plaintiffs dismissed the case in September 2022.

Morris filed her lawsuit over statements Haddish and Spears made after her children sued.

Morris later filed her lawsuit over statements the comedians made, labeling her an extortionist.

The court docs stated she claimed to have called Haddish's lawyer in February to ask the actress to release a statement clearing her from the extortion claims.

Morris said she got a call from Haddish in March and was told by Haddish that she would address it if the question was brought up, alleging the actress instead spoke negatively about her in a press tour interview weeks later.

"Haddish refuses to apologize to me for lying about being extorted," Morris alleged to RadarOnline.com on Thursday. "Tiffany Haddish thinks this is a joke and she [allegedly said in April 2023] that Hollywood is going to protect her, that's why she became Jewish."

Morris claimed that Haddish made the last remark when she asked Haddish about clearing the extortion claims.

[themilkcrate]

Updated Colleen Ballinger Situation Summary (8/27/2023)

Bad articles for reading up on the Colleen Ballinger situation

Vanity Fair (Recognized by the internet as a puff piece)

TMZ (Victim blaming, spreading misinformation, bad journalism in general, etc)

A great article for the Colleen Ballinger situation: Rolling Stone article

Who is Colleen Ballinger?

36 years old (37 in November 2023)

$12 million (ish) net worth

Been on YouTube for about 17 years

Most well known for her Miranda Sings character/alter ego

Has a Netflix show: "Haters Back Off"

Winner of the 2015 Teen Choice Awards for Choice Web Star: Comedy

Has been on tour many times (live shows)

Mother of three (3) children

Sister of Trent Ballinger (also accused: down below)

Accusations against Colleen Ballinger (No particular order)

Blackface (1) (Her lawyer Andrew Brettler has since denied the blackface allegations, saying it was dark green face paint)

Blackface (2) (Made a video with her sister mocking Latina girls)

Racism (Reported to be racist behind the scenes of her Netflix show: Haters Back Off)

Antisemitism: Tweet (s)

Fatphobia (Has insulted fans at meet & greets, etc)

Encouraging body checking to children (Has caused many fans to struggle with food, develop EDs, etc)

Slutshaming & degrading children (Having a "porn bit" at her live shows. More details down below)

Sending lingerie to a minor (2016, about 13 years old)

Running a smear campaign on a 17 year old for 3 years (the 17 years old that later came out against her for sending him lingerie) (more has since been revealed about this situation)

Saying "context matters" in an "apology" for sending lingerie to a minor and then removing the context of her begging Adam to send him lingerie.

Having James Charles support her on twitter regarding Adam McIntyre (the kid that got sent lingerie) (This lead to Adam being doxed multiple times and harassed for 3+ years)

Taking advantage of her fans for free labor (One case: Adam McIntyre, has been confirmed having worked for her for 4 years as a child)

Victim Blaming Adam McIntyre (a child) ("i never would have send the lingerie if he hadn't asked) (She removed evidence of her begging to send the lingerie to him in her response video)

Gaslighting, Manipulating, and Love Bombing her fans (Usually children, multiple counts/situations/years, etc)

Animal abuse/Animal cruelty & not taking care of her cats (Stuffing a cat in a bag and watching it struggle to get out; "sawing" a cat in half with a comb; joking about hurting a dog as a kid, it biting her, Colleen lying about what happened, and the dog being put down)

Being in Group Chats with Fans (Topics included: divorce, virginity, favorite sex position, periods, etc)

Inappropriate behavior with sister and nephew

Inappropriate YouTube thumbnails, videos, and series (One thumbnail featured her covering her face with the words "I'm a pedophile!")

Harassing homeless people (with friends like Todrick Hall)

Distributing Trisha Paytas' OF content to at least one minor (15 year old Adam McIntyre)

Hosting viewing parties to watch Trisha Paytas' OF content to make fun of her.

Insulting Trisha Paytas & her body ("We saw a whale squirt and I'm not taking about Trisha Paytas.")

Having multiple books marketed towards children (Inappropriate topics down below)

Using Fundly to run Children's Cancer Fund/Charity Event, which made the money that fans donated go directly to her bank account (She refuses to show receipts, but we do know at least some of the money was donated under Miranda Sings LLC.)

Allegedly creating a character on her Netflix show based off of a fan. Colleen thinks that Ella (the fan) was faking her illness to get closer to her. (Ella does in fact have fibro) The Netflix character is portrayed to be faking fibro, though it is kind of unclear whether the character actually has it or not.

Insulting fans behind their back (Ella, as well as other fans)

Transphobia (Ella, Colleen's books, etc)

Minimizing the situation (1) The Ukulele Video

Minimizing the situation (2) Calling Becky's situation a teenager being mad over a "fart joke" that happened "5 years ago." (More details down below)

Live Shows (Multiple Incidents)

Pulling a girls legs apart on stage (for a "yoga bit), almost exposing her to the crowd (the girl was wearing a romper so she'd be invited on stage for the porn bit)

Endangering Fans: Becky (The girl mentioned above) says that a lot of men were looking at her in a "predatory way" when she got off stage. She felt unsafe walking to her car. (One example)

Having a bit where Colleen would stuff a bag of cheese balls into her pants and would target young boys (9 to 11 years old) to bring on stage and have them put their hand down her pants.

She was targeting young boys because a fan (age 15 or so) asked if he could be in the bit and she told him "you're to old for that bit."

Colleen had a "porn bit" where she encouraged young girls to dress either like her character Miranda Sings (red pants, white shirt, usually long sleeves) or to dress "skimpy." (usually a tank top and shorts) Colleen would bring the girls on stage and call the one dressed as her "not porn" and girl dressed "skimpy" "not porn." (Reminder: these are children)

The Books & Inappropriate Topics/Encouraging Bad Behavior (Incomplete List) (There are videos on YouTube going over the books more in depth where you can see the books yourself)

Jokes about animal abuse/animal cruelty

irl pictures of a kid on a leash

Ableism (the R slur)

Transphobia

Homophobia

Sexualization of Children

Slutshaming Children

Jokes at the expense of homeless people

Normalization of pedo behavior

Normalization of incestuous behavior (Lots of creepy uncle jokes that are way too serious)

"Here's how to get a boyfriend: Get a net, gloves, binoculars..."

Normalization of r#pe culture ("If someone says no, try harder!")

"What a good boyfriend looks like: *picture of multiple youtubers & content creators including Shane Dawson.*"

(Shane Dawson has since been exposed for being inappropriate behavior with fans, including kissing 12 year old fans)

QR Codes to her own videos such as "How to twerk" (and "not be porn.") on the Miranda Sings YouTube channel

Telling kids to get a "clean copy" of the book so they can mess with this copy of the book and have a copy to mess with and a "clean" one. (greedy, greedy)

Trent Ballinger (Colleen's brother) & Oliver (Who is trans identified as a girl at the time) Trent: 33, Oliver: 13 (at the time)

Inappropriate behavior with children (Oliver has since come out against him)

DMing fans (Messages to Oliver are down below)

"My family says I shouldn't talk to people under 18."

"You look like my last girlfriend in that photo."

"Anything we say stays between you and I."

""You would look good preg if you ever want children one day."

Vanity Fair: Andrew Quintana is the author of this article. What went wrong?

Didn't reach out to both sides

Portrayed Adam McIntyre as a stalker and a liar (An obsessive fan, basically)

Got Adam's birthplace wrong. Said he was from Brighton, England. Adam is from Derry, Ireland. (This has since been corrected. It was the only correction made to the article)

Victim blames Adam McIntyre

Andrew Brettler (Collen's lawyer) denies a "Single Ladies" performance in dark green face paint isn't black face. Brettler never make a comment on Colleen grooming fans.

"The reality of some of these claims, and in turn, the broader narrative around Ballinger, remains murky."

"Ballinger painted a seemingly accurate portrait of the Miranda Sings community: a silly place for kids like McIntyre to belong, looking up to an increasingly famous and powerful public figure. “I’m not a monster, I’m not a groomer, and I do not deserve to die,” Ballinger said in the video"

"Meanwhile, Ballinger continued to work on a YouTube channel that was far from her Miranda Sings satire. “Colleen Vlogs” offered wholesome lifestyle content about her kids. McIntyre appeared to seize on this, accusing Ballinger’s brother’s family—“the Ballinger family,” who have a family-oriented channel—of endangering and “exploiting” their children online."

“How creepy that I feel I watched them grow up,” [Adam McIntyre] said. “It’s disgusting.” His critique gave way to a denunciation of family channels more broadly."

Shades HuffPost

Compares the allegations against Colleen Ballinger to right wingers accusing any gay dude of being a groomer.

A gay man (Quintana) is weaponizing the LGBTQ+ community against Collen's victims (many of whom are LGBTQ+)

Compares people talking about Colleen to the "anti-Amber Heard brigade."

Quintana @'ed Adam McIntyre so he would see, turned off the comments on his latest Insta post, turned off all comments, and then blocked Adam. Adam literally just wanted to know what was up. He wasn't even being harassed.

There has since been recent news about Johnny Silvestri (one of the people who came out against Colleen and her ex-husband Josh). The best way to find info about that side of the situation in watching SWOOP's doc on it. (Part 3)

It's a long watch, but she actually has journalistic integrity (unlike Andrew Quintana). She keeps things engaging while providing important information.

If more comes out (which it probably will), I'll either remake this post, edit it, etc.

[houseofbrat]

Andrew, his lawyers, and his publicists really trying to work the refs in the UK press via Camilla Tominey in The Telegraph ten days ago:

There is also hope that any unsealing of court papers in the Dershowitz case may clear up an ongoing confusion over Ms Giuffre’s place of residence.

Mr Brettler initially tried to halt the US civil case against the Duke by claiming that the federal court in New York did not have jurisdiction over the matter because Ms Giuffre is domiciled in Australia, not Colorado as she alleged.

Arguing the case should be halted until the “issue of subject matter jurisdiction is adjudicated”, he wrote to the court in December 2021: “In her complaint Ms Giuffre alleges she is a citizen of the state of Colorado; the evidence demonstrates that she is actually domiciled in Australia, where she has lived for all but two of the past 19 years.

“It is undisputed that at the time she filed this action Ms Giuffre had an Australian driver’s licence and was living in a $A1.9 million [about £1.1 million] home in Perth, Western Australia, where she and her husband have been raising their three children.

“In reality, Ms Giuffre’s ties to Colorado are very limited. She has not lived there since at least 2019 – approximately two years before she filed this lawsuit against Prince Andrew – and potentially, according to her own deposition testimony, not since October 2015.”

Ms Brettler said Ms Giuffre only recently registered to vote in Colorado using her mother and stepfather’s mailing address there.

Yet the court rejected this argument, along with Mr Brettler’s plea for the case to be thrown out because Ms Giuffre had a “tortured interpretation” of the law she was relying on. He said some of the alleged offences were said to have happened outside New York state and beyond the jurisdiction of the New York Child Victims Act (CVA) that she was using.

Because this is what the US FEDERAL JUDGE had to say about it:

LEWIS A. KAPLAN, District Judge.

Defendant moves for an order compelling plaintiff to respond to“targeted” but as yet unspecified “written discovery requests pertaining to her domicile,” requiring her “to submit to a two-hour remote deposition limited to the issue of her domicile,” and staying all other discovery until the Court determines whether subject matter exists, lack of which would be a potential defense that the defendant refers to as “anticipated” and that he concededly has not actually raised.

The motion (Dkt 58) is denied, substantially for the reasons set forth in the plaintiff's opposition to defendant’s motion. Among other relevant points, it appears that the defendant previously served on the plaintiff extensive discovery, including at least one comprehensive request for documents relating to her domicile, to which responses are due, and have been promised, by January 14. See Dkt. 58-2, at 2.

This ruling is without prejudice to any defense of lack of subject matter jurisdiction that defendant may raise by motion or by answer. It likewise is made without determining the merit, or lack of merit, in plaintiff's assertion that defendant’s motion is “a transparent attempt to delay discovery into his own documents and testimony.” Dkt. 60, at 2.

SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 31, 2021

What were some of the reasons set forth in the plaintiff’s opposition? Consider this portion: 

First, Prince Andrew has not made a strong showing that any forthcoming motion he may file will have merit. Defendant repeatedly states that Plaintiff resides in Australia, but where she resides is not the question—it is her domicile, and domicile and residence are distinct legal concepts. See GTG Holdings, Inc. v. Amvensys Cap. Grp., LLC, 2016 WL 931215, at *1 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 11, 2016). “Domicile has been described as the place where a person has his true fixed home and principal establishment, and to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning.” Linardos v. Fortuna, 157 F.3d 945, 948 (2d Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Accordingly, Plaintiff’s domicile is (and was at all relevant times) Colorado.

Defendant’s selective excerpts of Plaintiff’s prior depositions omit testimony that demonstrates her intent to return to Colorado. For example, Plaintiff testified that she and her husband left Colorado because his elderly father needed their imminent care in Australia after multiple surgeries.(2) As Defendant himself points out, Plaintiff is registered to vote in Colorado, where her mother currently resides. See Dkt. 58-9. 3 These facts, and additional evidence for which Defendant has already sought discovery, establish Plaintiff’s Colorado citizenship. See, e.g., King v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 505 F.3d 1160, 1171 (11th Cir. 2007) (domicile in California where parents testified that, prior to plaintiff’s dying while living abroad, she intended to return home).

Defendant mischaracterizes Plaintiff’s pleadings in the Dershowitz case to suggest, for example, that an allegation in a proposed amended complaint that she “was a citizen of the State of Colorado” is an admission that she was no longer a citizen of Colorado at the time of amendment. Mot at 4. Plaintiff worded the allegation in that way, however, because diversity jurisdiction over her second amended complaint depended on the court having jurisdiction at the time of filing the action. See, e.g., Coury v. Prot, 85 F.3d 244, 248 (5th Cir. 1996) (“diversity of citizenship must exist at the time the action is commenced”).

There we have it. Domicile and residence are different legal concepts in the USA. 

Andrew’s “friend” who talked to Tominey is really dumb. 

“He settled without admitting any guilt and has always resolutely insisted that he has been falsely accused. He’s been utterly consistent about that for more than a decade.

“But when he settled, it didn’t clear his name. So there is a legal resolution, but this was always a three-stage process: legal resolution, followed by clearing his name, followed by whatever it is he wants to do next.

“You can’t expect the Duke to live permanently in this no man’s land with a legal resolution of a civil case, no investigation by any legal authority, let alone any charges. He’s not been found guilty of anything in a court of law, yet in the court of public opinion, his name remains sullied because people think there is no smoke without fire.

“No investigation”? 

You refused to talk to the US DOJ, remember Andrew? Because believe me, everyone at the prosecutor’s office at SDNY remembers. And your Mummy isn’t around to protect you any longer. 

Keep your “sources” talking in the UK press, Andrew. People who work at the US Department of Justice can read articles on the internets just like everyone else. They can see you sending out that bimbo, aka Lady Victoria Hervey, and doing yourself no favors. 

Keep it up Andrew and the US DOJ will grant your wish for an official and very PUBLIC acknowledgement that they’ve been investigating you! 

[the-fall-of-armie-hammer]

"He is working at the resort and selling timeshares. He is working at a cubicle,” a source, who called Variety this week, explains. “The reality is he’s totally broke, and is trying to fill the days and earn money to support his family.”

This individual, who asked to remain anonymous, says that prior to working as a timeshare salesman, Hammer was managing an apartment complex in the Cayman Islands. He is living there so he can be near his two young children who have been residing in the Caymans with his ex-wife, TV host and entrepreneur Elizabeth Chambers. A source previously told Variety that Hammer had also spent time in recovery at a treatment facility after his career downfall.

Hammer — who starred in “The Social Network,” “Call Me By Your Name” and most recently, Disney’s “Death on the Nile” — is the great-grandson of oil tycoon Armand Hammer. Despite his family lineage, the source explains that he is not on the family payroll, and needs to work a normal and respectable job to earn money, since he is not getting work in Hollywood. Last year, after he was accused online of sexual abuse and improper behavior by numerous women, Hammer was dropped by his agency, WME, and was fired from a plethora of projects, including Jennifer Lopez’s “Shotgun Wedding,” the thriller “Billion Dollar Spy,” the Broadway play, “The Minutes” and the Paramount Plus series “The Offer,” in which Miles Teller took over his role.

Last week, rumors began when a flyer made the rounds on social media, depicting Hammer as a concierge employed at Morritt’s Resort in Grand Cayman. The flyer, which was shared (and later deleted) by the verified Twitter account of Muna Mire, a producer on Showtime’s “Desus & Mero,” included a photo of the actor.

At that time, Variety reported that Hammer was not working as a hotel concierge when an employee at the resort said that the flyer boiled down to a prank: Hammer was a guest of the hotel and had just been golfing with some of the hotel staff with whom he had become friendly. The hotel employee told Variety that the staff Hammer was golfing with made the flyer and sent it to a few rooms at the resort to try to see what sort of attention it might get. “I could only dream of this sort of publicity,” the hotel staffer said on the phone one week ago. When reached for comment at that time, Hammer’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, also said that the flyer was fake.

Then, when photos of Hammer working as a timeshare salesman surfaced on TMZ over this past weekend, an employee at the Morritt’s Resort was adamant that Hammer is not employed at the resort, though they indicated that he “hangs around” the location sometimes.

Now, this source says that the hotel was trying to protect Hammer — who is, in fact, working a job selling timeshares.

[armies-army]

It's amazing to me that since the interview with Andrew Brettler came out, now Effie has moved on with her preoccupation with the Depp/Heard trial.

Well, that's a good thing but It's funny how a person who falsely accused someone of abuse and murder literally, is now casually giving their opinions on stuff on social media, and no one is saying anything. But it's not a big deal right? Cause he's a rich white man, he don't deserve no benifit of doubt or an apology even though he's the victim.

[itsbansheebitch]

Colleen apologized to Trish after Trish posted her "Colleen" video. She APOLOGIZED for sending pictures (from OF) of her to FANS. Does Andrew Brettler know his client has ADMITTED to a FEDERAL CRIME? Sending obscene & explicit material to minors is a fucking F-E-L-O-N-Y. I used to not think she was going to court, but now I'm thinking she might actually get charged.

Remember, originally, when Trish confronted Colleen, Colleen lied her face and said that ADAM sent them to HER. Which implied that some sort of conversation including these pictures DID HAPPEN. Now we know that she was the one sending them FOR SURE (Not that I didn't believe Adam in the first place, but 100% confirmation is always nice)

(Sorry for the blurry screenshot, it was originally posted on Reddit's r/colleenballingersnark by another user)

[msclaritea]

ARMIE HAMMER'S life seemed beautiful from the outside—perfect wife and kids, sparkling Hollywood career. But a glimpse into his family's dark past reveals how the shocking allegations of rape and abuse may be the latest chapter in a fraught legacy

MAY 2021 JULIE MILLER

ARMIE HAMMER ALREADY needed crisis therapy.

The world was under lockdown last summer, and Hammer had been quarantining at a luxury villa in the Cayman Islands with his father, Michael, his stepmother, Misty, his two young children, and his wife of a decade, Elizabeth.

"It was a very complicated, intense situation, with big personalities all locked in a little tiny place," Hammer told British GQ. " I think, to be quite frank, I came very close to completely losing my mind." He compared himself to a trapped wolf who wants to "chew his own foot off."

Hammer had been so desperate to escape the Caymans that he booked a flight back to the U.S. A source close to Elizabeth claims that his decision to flee his family during a pandemic was the ultimate affront in a marriage that had already been tested by infidelity; she filed for divorce in July. By January 1, Hammer seemed to have rebounded romantically with a series of short-term girlfriends and was ready to face the world anew: "2021 is going to kneel down before me and kiss my feet because this year I'm the boss," Hammer tweeted. "Now I know what we are up against and it's time to go to war."

Several weeks later, however, Hammer found himself in a darker crisis. Amid the turmoil of divorce proceedings, several women took to social media to accuse the actor of emotional abuse, manipulation, and violence. The scandal ballooned as screengrabs circulated that seemed to show the actor describing sexual fantasies involving rape and cannibalism. Hammer stepped away from two high-profile projects, a rom-com with Jennifer Lopez and a Paramount series about the making of The Godfather. Shortly after, his agency, WME, dropped him.

Then, in mid-March, a woman came forward with detailed allegations of rape and an attack so violent that she thought "he was going to kill me." In a press conference with her lawyer Gloria Allred, Effie (who declined to give her full name), recounted a 2017 assault that lasted for several hours, in which Hammer slammed her head against a wall, bruised her face, and whipped her feet with a crop. Hammer's lawyer, Andrew Brettler, has maintained that "all interactions between Mr. Hammer and his former partners were consensual," releasing correspondence between Effie and Hammer over the course of a four-year relationship. But as Allred emphasized to Vanity Fair in an earlier interview for this story, while adults may "consent to some BDSM practices, they still have a right to withhold consent to other practices."

For the people who know Hammer's family—peppered with Russian communists and American oil tycoons—the allegations are an unsurprising development in a long and sordid history with drugs, sex, dysfunction, and betrayal. Many men in the Hammer family have a dark side, sources close to the family say, one that looms across five consecutive generations.

SINS OF THE FATHERS

THE FAMILY'S FIRST brush with scandal was in 1919, when Armie's great-great-grandfather, Dr. Julius Hammer, gave the wife of a Russian diplomat an abortion. Julius was a Russian immigrant living in the Bronx and a central member of the Communist Party of the United States, according to biographer Edward Jay Epstein, who published Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer in 1996. The woman, Marie Oganesoff, died days later. Julius was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 3 and a half to 12 years in Sing Sing.

With Julius in prison, his 22-year-old son, Armand Hammer (Armie's namesake) , abandoned a medical career to take over his father's other business, Allied Drug. According to Epstein, Vladimir Lenin sent a message to Joseph Stalin encouraging "particular support" for Armand, telling him, "This is a small path to the American 'business' world and this path should be made use of in every way." Armand moved to the Soviet Union in 1921 for about a decade to fortify family connections. While there, he married a Russian singer named Olga and together they had a son named Julian— Armie's grandfather.

"I started watching Succession and I had to turn it off," says Armie's aunt Casey, "because it was like, 'Oh, my God. That's my family.'"

By the 1950s, Armand had divorced Olga as well as a second wife, Angela, who had told the court that, due to his time in Russia and his medical training, "[it] causes him no pain to see the sufferings of others." He moved to Los Angeles, married a wealthy woman named Frances Barrett Tolman in 1956, invested her money in the then failing Occidental Petroleum, and drove the company to incredible success.

Armand tried to distance himself from his Soviet connections, reimagining himself as a self-made industrialist—he even hired a journalist to ghostwrite a memoir, The Remarkable Life of Dr. Armand Hammer. He had a private Boeing 727; palled around with Prince Charles and high-powered politicians (he was a close friend of Senator Al Gore Sr. and attended the inaugurations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, among other presidents); collected expensive artwork; and convinced Chinese leaders to lend two pandas to Los Angeles for the city's 1984 Olympics. He died in 1990.

But in 1996, Epstein's bombshell biography exposed the late Occidental Petroleum chairman for wide-ranging grifts, including laundering money, using artwork to fund Soviet espionage, bribing his way into the oil business, and knocking off Fabergé eggs. According to Epstein, Armand bugged his office and home, plus his cufflinks, to record decades' worth of conversations. He had a fixer and was known to do business with a briefcase full of cash. He also made an illegal contribution to the Nixon reelection campaign which, "in all likelihood," according to The New York Times, "went to help pay for the Watergate cover-up." Though he faced a felony charge for obstructing justice, a Washington lawyer helped him plead guilty to misdemeanor charges, and Bush later pardoned him.

Armand had multiple mistresses, including Martha Kaufman—a mother of two who divorced her husband after meeting Armand, and whom he put on Occidental's payroll as an art consultant. When Armand's wife, Frances, grew suspicious, Armand had Martha legally change her name to Hilary Gibson—insisting, according to Epstein, that his mistress wear wigs, glasses, and makeup to change her appearance. The affair lasted more than a decade, with Armand promising to take care of her and her children after he died, she later told Epstein; she drove a car with a homing device, used a tapped phone, and submitted to his sexual demands even when they were "extremely humiliating." When Armand died, she learned that he had left her out of his will.

"Everything he did was public," said Casey Hammer, Armand's granddaughter and Armie's aunt, who is estranged from most of her family and works as a kitchen designer at a San Diego Home Depot. "God forbid you did anything wrong in front of his friends. You couldn't wear the same dress twice to his gala parties. On the outside, we had to be the perfect family." But behind the scenes, Armand required his son, Julian, daughter-in-law, Glenna Sue, and three grandchildren to make appointments to see him, Casey claimed. "I started watching Succession and I had to turn it off," said Casey, "because it was like, 'Oh, my God. That's my family.' "

Julian was extremely bright, but Armand didn't seem to care much for his only child and passed him over entirely when he left Julian's son, Michael—Armie's father— his business empire. Casey believes her father, Julian, caused too much trouble and was an affront to Armand's obsession with appearances. As she said, he "could never get my grandfather's attention unless he resorted to really, really bad behavior."

In the morning hours after Julian's 26th birthday, in 1955, he killed a man inside his Los Angeles home over a gambling debt and supposed advances on his wife, Glenna Sue. The front-page headlines read "Millionaire's Son Kills GI." Armand had a friend deliver $50,000 in cash to a lawyer in Los Angeles. Julian claimed self-defense, and charges were dismissed.

In her self-published 2015 book, Surviving My Birthright, Casey alleges that Julian sexually abused her when she was a child, and that Julian was abusive to others in the family, allegations she also made to Epstein. In an email, Jan Ward, Casey and Michael's half sister, declined to comment on the allegations, instead offering this statement: "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. 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."

Like his father, Michael struggled with excess. In 1985, Michael, then working at Occidental, met Dru Mobley on a plane. The lore, as Armie told New York magazine's Vulture: "My dad was supposed to be on a flight, went to the airport, and got hammered and passed out.... He missed his flight, woke up, and was like, 'Oh God, I have a meeting.'" He rebooked, switched seats due to claustrophobia, and wound up next to Dru. They married that year and had Armie the next. The devout Christian Dru seemed to have a tempering effect on Michael's own vice struggles, which he has said included drinking and drugs. "When I accepted Christ," Michael has said, "the [bad experiences] didn't just stop, but they started dwindling."

DADDY ISSUES

IF ARMAND WANTED to keep the empire he built in the family, he didn't have many options. His son, Julian, was addled and unreliable, and his grandson, Michael, by multiple accounts, was not as bright and more interested in a playboy lifestyle than world domination. When Armie was four, his great-grandfather Armand, estimated by Forbes to be worth around $180 million, died. The battle for the estate began almost immediately and still simmers 30 years later. Within hours of Armand's death, police officers who were summoned to the house observed Michael attempting to remove belongings and load them into five waiting cars. (The house, which had been owned by the late Frances, was to be turned over to Frances's niece upon Armand's death.) Casey and Hilary Gibson claimed that Armand had made promises to his family that his estate would take care of them. But at the will reading in a Los Angeles law office, his heirs learned he'd only left behind a piddly $40 million; Casey and her father would each receive just $250,000. In addition to cutting Julian out, Armand name-checked Jan—Glenna Sue's daughter from another relationship, and thereby his step-granddaughter—as having no claim to his estate.

"All of a sudden, I'm in a bad Stephen King novel," Casey said. "My father is worried about why Michael got the Rolls-Royce. And I'm like, 'Dad, you don't understand. You're going to be out on the street, no one's paying for your house, no one's paying for anything.' " The next day, Casey said that she sat with Julian "so he doesn't blow his brains out because now he's threatening to kill me, he's threatening to kill Michael, he's threatening to kill everybody."

"That's got to be true because that's the weirdest fucking thing I've ever heard. Who would lie about that? That's weirder than saying, 'I tied up 25 people.'"

In total, 100 claims and lawsuits were filed against Armand's estate—by Casey, by former mistresses, by charities alleging that the late tycoon owed them, according to The Washington Post. (Casey says that she settled for about $1.4 million. Epstein reported that Gibson settled for $4.2 million.) The inheritance battle tore the family apart. Michael's own mother, Glenna Sue, told The Washington Post that her son "forgot about us," instead favoring Dru's family. Rumors still linger that Armand had stockpiled large sums in cash lockboxes and secret overseas bank accounts, and those were inflamed when Scott Deitrick—Michael's college friend whom Michael appointed vice president of the Armand Hammer Foundation—was arrested after a flight back from London with $60,000 in undeclared cash. "According to Twin Cities news stories at the time, Deitrick's passport recorded nearly 12 trips abroad lasting less than 36 hours," reported The Washington Post. (Michael posted the $250,000 bail and Deitrick was later acquitted of cash-smuggling charges.)

Armand had yearned for a legacy, spending more than $100 million to build the Hammer Museum. But in 1994, according to The Washington Post, Michael turned it over to the UCLA art department. He also asked the Metropolitan Museum of Art to remove Armand's name from the Hall of Arms and Armor rather than pay the remaining $1 million on his grandfather's pledge. Even though Armand had spent his final years recommitting himself to the Jewish faith—he didn't live to celebrate a belated bar mitzvah for himself in his 92nd year—Michael began redirecting the Hammer Foundation's funds to Christian groups like Jews for Jesus and Italy for Christ.

As of 2021, Armand's name no longer graces the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it fronts the student center at Oral Roberts University, a Christian school where Dru is a board trustee. In the last two decades, ProPublica's tax-record database shows, the foundation has donated over $3 million to the university and more than $4 million more to the Pentecostal Dream Centers, among a smattering of other causes, religious and not.

Julian died in 1996. The year after, Michael moved Dru, Armie, and his younger son, Viktor, to a seaside condo on Grand Cayman—briefly relinquishing his U.S. citizenship in the '90s. The move, according to Armie, was predicated on Michael's having been a big fan of The Firm, the movie in which Tom Cruise travels to the Caribbean tax haven.

Ten years later the family returned to California, but the transition from the Caribbean was rocky. In 2005, the 21-room manor in Pasadena that the family was renovating burned down, resulting in $15 million worth of damages. In 2011, Michael spent the night in a Santa Barbara jail for a DUI charge that was subsequently dropped. Later that year, significantly bigger trouble blew the Hammers' way when the Knoedler Gallery—part of Michael's inheritance from Armand and one of the oldest New York galleries—shuttered suddenly. The next day, the gallery and its former director Ann Freedman were sued by hedge fund executive Pierre Lagrange for selling him a forged Jackson Pollock painting for $17 million. In the years and lawsuits that followed, Knoedler was accused of selling about $70 million in fake paintings—all done by a little-known artist in Queens—in a con that allegedly stretched back to 1994. In total, Knoedler was accused of selling 63 forged pieces. All of the 10 lawsuits filed against Knoedler were settled, one midway through a high-profile trial in 2016—with Domenico De Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International and Sotheby's, and his wife, Eleanor, seeking $25 million in damages.

During the trial, a Knoedler accountant testified that Michael Hammer had essentially treated the 8-31 Holdings group, which owned the gallery, as his personal piggy bank—using a company credit card to buy, among other things, two luxury cars and a trip to Paris for a little over $1 million. When Michael sold one of the cars, a Rolls-Royce, in 2008, he kept the $452,000 it brought, listing it on his W-2 as salary.

About an hour before Michael was scheduled to testify, both parties reached a settlement. Though some in the art world predicted that Knoedler's downfall would damage Michael's—and tangentially, even Armie's—reputation, it didn't seem to.

We call these guys the lucky sperm club here," said a person with ties to the family. "Never accomplished anything. They know a whole lot about spending other people's money." If there is another skill Michael appears to have, it is hiring good lawyers. Various sources who wanted to speak about the specifics of Michael's business and personal tactics—many of them women—say they are frightened to speak on record or have signed paperwork prohibiting them from doing so. Michael's current lawyer, Tom Clare, is representing Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell—seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages from each man for claiming the company's voting machines were used to steal the 2020 election.

In spite of the scandals, Michael remains a regular fixture in Montecito society pages, at car shows, and around charity events benefiting the Santa Barbara police. In 2015, the same year the Armand Hammer Foundation made a $1.1 million donation to the Petersen Automotive Museum, the organization added Michael to its board of directors. The endowment he is most proud of, multiple people say, is his own. For years, three people claimed, Michael boasted about a sex throne or "naughty chair," as he has called it, that he kept in Armand Hammer Foundation headquarters in Carpinteria—a warehouse where two people claim Michael lived for several years after his divorce. The structure, about seven feet high, features a chair with a hole in the seat, a cage underneath, and a hook. The Hammer coat of arms—the same one that, for years, adorned the exterior of the headquarters—is painted on the seat. In one photo Michael sits atop the throne grinning while holding the head of a blond woman, sitting in the cage and also smiling. In response to Vanity Fair's questions about Michael's sex throne, drug and alcohol use, finances, and history with women, Clare, counsel for Michael Hammer and the Armand Hammer Foundation, said, "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."

One former friend who knew of the sex throne said that, when he heard about Armie's alleged kinks, "I was not the least bit surprised."

In 2017—several years after he and Dru divorced—Michael proposed to Misty Millward, a Four Seasons The Biltmore spa "healer," in Michael's words, who helped him recover from back surgery, with a seven-and-a-half-carat diamond on the Fourth of July. Speaking to the Montecito Journal, Michael said that his proposal had a patriotic theme: a red alligator-skin Birkin bag; Armand's white Rolls, in which he popped the question; and the blue of his very own eyes.

CALL HIM BY HIS NAME

ARMIE HAS THE same blue eyes. And the family name tattooed on his wrist. When Armie Hammer broke through in Hollywood, with 2010's The Social Network, the sordid lore of his family backstory was a footnote, whether forgotten or purposely ignored.

To the world Armie was simply a cartoon-prince-handsome scion. It's easy to discount a beautiful person, especially a beautiful person with a famous last name, as one-dimensional. But Armie spent many interviews over his decade-long career telegraphing his own texture.

In 2018, Armie told Conan O'Brien about his own arrest in 2011—the same year that Michael was pulled over for the DUI in Santa Barbara. Armie and a friend had been transporting supplies for Elizabeth's bakery, Bird, through Texas when their truck was stopped at a checkpoint and a dog sniffed marijuana. Armie spent the night in jail. "The inmates were great," Armie said after cameras cut to a mug shot showing him tanned with a popped collar. "The guards were real assholes."

And yes, he was raised in "the fucking paradise"of the Cayman Islands and "used to have a painting of Gorbachev that was given to my family by Gorbachev." But he was also raised with good values, thanks to Dru, he has said.

"My mother's parents grew up in the Depression in Oklahoma, so it was very different," Armie told GQ. "She didn't allow us to be raised like we were wealthy. We were never just told, 'Hey, here's [some cash].... If our friends were getting a $10 allowance, she would make a point of giving us $7."

He has claimed financial independence from his family throughout his career—"I'm really proud of that"—so much so that, in 2017, he confessed he couldn't pay on a bet he had lost to filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. "It would literally bankrupt me, and I need to buy diapers tomorrow."

Armie's ex has been jokingly her marriage to Ted Bundy movie—Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

Armie's upbringing, through his own eyes, was picaresque. As a child in the Cayman Islands, he told Details in 2011, he was a machete-wielding, tree-climbing Tom Sawyer. As an adolescent in Los Angeles, after a family move, he was an outcast truant who identified with Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone character, set school property ablaze, and dropped out of high school. His image-conscious and outwardly religious parents, Armie said, disapproved of his decision to act. "My entire life has been this long, pressured conversation about the family I represented," Armie has said, recalling Armand's own ethos: "When you walk out the door, you represent us." Eventually, Armie found success doing it. When Armie booked a starring role as a young Billy Graham in the 2008 biopic Billy: The Early Years, Dru hosted a screening for about 300 friends at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater, confirmed two people with knowledge of the event.

The year after Armie appeared as the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, he costarred with Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar. A run at marquee stardom followed—the rom-com Mirror Mirror with Julia Roberts; the action epic The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp; and the 2015 caper film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. alongside Henry Cavill—but fizzled. Armie developed a sense of humor about his lack of success as a leading man. Asked about the low box office return of one film, he deadpanned, " That might be the Armie Hammer effect." As if the box office busts weren't ego damaging enough, BuzzFeed piled on with a damning feature by Anne Helen Petersen titled "Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen." The subheading said it all, and still does: "How many second chances does a handsome white male star get?"

Guadagnino saw grit beneath Armie's surface, though, and cast him in 2017's Oscar-winning indie Call Me by Your Name. "It's not just that he's beautiful-looking," said the filmmaker. "It's that plus his inner turmoil that is fascinating to me." The performance earned Armie a Golden Globe nomination—the most acclaim of his career. But he bristled in one press interview, telling Andy Cohen that his religious mother, Dru, refused to see the film—because the drama centers on a same-sex romance. "It goes against a lot of her very strong religious beliefs," he said.

Occasional familial venting aside, Armie looked the part of the perfect movie star. "He's like this classical leading man...somebody who's a little out of time, like seeing Gary Cooper walk into a supermarket or something," said Armie's Lone Ranger director, Gore Verbinski. And in Elizabeth—a tough woman like Dru, but with an entrepreneurial spirit in lieu of an evangelical one—Armie seemingly found his match. "I mean, they are the Ken and Barbie of the world," gushed Kathie Lee Gifford, a friend of the family, recalling the couple's 2010 wedding.

Some people I spoke to described Armie as a sweet, goofy, unfiltered guy who loves his children. A what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person. Timothée Chalamet once described him as the example of "when people present themselves as they truly are. And Armie is as he truly is." In hindsight Armie was perhaps more unfiltered than he or anyone realized.

To Elle: "One chick tried to stab me when we were having sex.... She was like, 'True love leaves scars. You don't have any.' And then she tried to stab me with a butcher knife." He continued to date her for seven months.

Also to Elle: He recalled a violent altercation with a homeless man. "My wife says I have a frontal lobe issue. Your frontal lobe controls your danger response, like, 'Whoa, I shouldn't be doing this.' "

To Details: He recounted the story of a multiday beer-soaked bachelor party that concluded with an epic bonfire, "a giant tequila bottle full of gasoline," and a machine gun.

To Playboy: He discussed the effect Elizabeth had on his bedroom habits. "I used to like to be a dominant lover. I liked the grabbing of the neck and the hair and all that. Then you get married and your sexual appetites change.... You can't really pull your wife's hair. It gets to a point where you say, 'I respect you too much to do these things that I want to do.' "

After Playboy, Armie expressed regret, explaining that he had learned the hard way not to drink during interviews. But for a 2019 British GQ profile, Armie and the writer drank so many martinis that the writer blacked out.

His reported social media liking habits suggested that he was fond of bondage. And he has spoken profusely about his love of knots to Playboy ("a man's version of knitting"), Stephen Colbert (whom he challenged to a knot-tying contest on The Late Show), and InStyle ("l've never admitted this before... sometimes I carry a rope to practice knots").

A source close to Elizabeth said that, when he was not working, Armie would throw himself into hobbies with great intensity. Several years back, Armie introduced Elizabeth to shibari, a Japanese bondage art form in which people are tied up in intricate patterns. Elizabeth tried to be supportive of the new interest, which Armie allegedly indulged by buying mannequins and inventing elaborate knots. Elizabeth even tried to find a lucrative spin on the obsession: "She suggested he write a book about a hobby called Why Knot?" laughed the friend.

Armie and Elizabeth had two children—a daughter in 2014 and a son in 2017, the latter of whom was given the middle name Armand as an homage to the Hammer lineage. According to a friend close to Elizabeth, Armie confessed to being unfaithful shortly after his son's birth—but claimed it was a one-time offense. Years later, this friend says, Elizabeth found evidence of an affair Armie was having with a costar. The Hammers had been in expensive family therapy, but, to Elizabeth, the indiscretions—and more notably his decision to flee the family during a pandemic—were the final straw. When Armie touched down in the U.S., he mistakenly sent a raunchy text message meant for someone else to his estranged spouse. Elizabeth filed for divorce shortly after.

"THE WEIRDEST FUCKING THING I'VE EVER HEARD"

BY HIS OWN admissions over the years, Armie has enjoyed partying—and, finally free from the restrictions of a decade-long marriage, he indulged. Friends close to the family remark that Armie's separation behavior recalls Michael's. Michael's post-split tear is said to have involved a string of women, illicit substances, and tattoos. It's a popular misconception that the Hammers created the Arm & Hammer baking soda brand—Armand settled for investing in it after his bid to buy the company was rejected—but Michael fuels it with a tattoo of the popular logo on his arm. The slogan for Arm & Hammer is "the standard of purity," while Michael allegedly embodied the opposite. Michael, whom multiple people say has the mindset of a teenage boy, also allegedly documented some of his deeds—texting X-rated photos to friends.

Two people claim that Armie did the same, suddenly getting more than five tattoos in a matter of months—including an outline of the Caymans above his knee; a heart that was inked by the in-house tattoo artist at Kaia Gerber's birthday party to match two teenage boys'; the letters "E.G.B.A.," standing for "Everything's gonna be alright"; and the word chaos because he wants his life to be chaos. Said one friend, "I'm pretty sure he's accomplishing that."

Armie also depicted a new dark side on his secret Instagram feed, @el_destructo_86. One photo, of him taking a drug test, was captioned: "All negative, bitches. My body is a finely tuned toxicant processing unit. To be fair I had THC and benzos in my piss. But who doesn't." Another photo showed a mannequin tied up, with the caption, "If quarantine doesn't start moving more quickly I'm going to fuck this thing."

Two women who knew Armie romantically in the last year say they were intoxicated by his charm—and that he was able to cycle through Romeo and Juliet-style romantic proclamations, teary family confessionals, and kinky bedroom scenarios with disorienting ease.

According to Courtney Vucekovich, Armie was on a flight out of the Cayman Islands—escaping the "intense" lockdown situation last June—when he messaged her on Instagram for the first time. The DMs came fast and furiously; the actor immediately spilled about the tense situation with what he described as his "crazy family"— describing near-fistfights with his father and a short-lived escape plan that involved taking a fishing boat to Cuba.

"Within the first five minutes, he was basically like, this all goes back to my horrible childhood," said Vucekovich, the owner of an on-demand glam app called FLASHD. "It's not the most romantic thing, but we bonded over past trauma."

Armie earned her sympathy, according to Vucekovich, through full-court press. "Day one, he makes you feel bad for him; it's when he makes himself look like a victim. Then he love-bombs you like crazy; you've never felt more special in your entire life. I've never seen anything like it. We're in a restaurant, and I'm sitting across from him, and he pulls my chair over, right next to him, in front of everybody—and is hugging and kissing you. You're the only girl in the whole world. And then he starts the manipulation and the darker stuff.

"One of the most shocking things, that I realized he did to other women, is he says that he never tied up a human being before, only mannequins," she continued. "I remember thinking, like, That's got to be true because that's the weirdest fucking thing I've ever heard. Who would lie about that? That's weirder than saying, 'I tied up 25 people.' "

Vucekovich explained that one encounter, which took place during an evening in Sedona, Arizona, left her with regret. Armie, she said, was drinking heavily and persuaded her to participate in "a bondage scenario that I was not comfortable with." He sulked, "cold and angry," to convince her, and then, she said, "I eventually consented and really regretted doing so."

As messy as it was, Vucekovich said she felt like it was a real relationship. Armie had introduced her to his mother, Dru, and talked about bringing her to the Dominican Republic while he filmed a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez. But just as fast as the relationship formed, in June, and intensified—the two were spending nearly every day together, she alleged—it ended, in September. She checked herself into a treatment program for trauma.

In September the then 22-year-old Paige Lorenze met Armie. She, too, got an immediate barrage of sordid family secrets. "A lot of really dark stuff," Lorenze said. "I felt confused why he was telling me this stuff so instantly.... It was stuff I would never share off the bat.... He said his grandfather was this kind of very scary person who had these crazy sex parties where there would be guns." But, said Lorenze, there was an unmistakable tone of awe. "He thought it was cool and was proud of him in a way."

Armie took Lorenze to Texas to meet his mother, like he had with Vucekovich. She enjoyed the trip because it felt like a "normal relationship" thing to do but suspected Armie's relationship with Dru was complicated. His mother spoke of "the devil" trying to "take" Armie, and she worried that he didn't believe in God.

Lorenze said that Dru let the two sleep in a bedroom together—jokingly pulling out a ruler and telling them to stay six feet apart—but immediately started grilling her about her religious beliefs. "She was very, very sweet to me. She instantly started talking to me: Well, have I accepted the Holy Spirit? I've never been to such a Christian household."

After a few days Lorenze said that Dru opened up to her "about how she was so worried about Armie and so grateful for me because she felt like I was a good influence on him. 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."

During their time together, Lorenze said, Armie didn't have any money. She said that she paid for "everything," since Armie was only getting by on loans from friends.

Lorenze broke things off with Armie after "he started making rules for me of things I could and couldn't do, who I could have over, who I couldn't. He told me that I couldn't have anyone else in my bed. And then I just started to feel really unsafe and really sick to my stomach about things," she said. "I was also emotionally dependent on him." Lorenze ended the relationship over text "because you never know what you're going to get with him—he's kind of a scary person."

Lorenze has since moved back to the East Coast and wants nothing to do with the entertainment business. She said she didn't plan to speak—or think—about Armie Hammer again.

Then she saw messages posted on the anonymous @houseofeffie Instagram account, purported to be from Armie and detailing extreme BDSM scenarios. The date stamps ranged from 2016 to 2020—overlapping with Armie's marriage to Elizabeth (who, through a representative, declined to be interviewed for this story).

"I saw these screenshots and my stomach just dropped, like, Holy fuck," said Lorenze. "Because he would say things to me...weird stuff..like, 'I want to eat your ribs.' The scariest part of it is that I did love him in a way. I would've let him kind of do anything. He had a certain hold over me."

Lorenze said that she spoke up for several reasons: to support the other women coming forward, to hold Armie accountable for what she claims he did to her, and to open up conversations about consent. "Consent is really complicated—even if it's consenting to something in vanilla sex that you don't really want to do, and say yes to...it can be really traumatizing." Lorenze said that she hopes to "start an organization that can advocate for safe sex and women learning how to say no."

After a version of this story was published online in March, Effie, the 24-year-old woman presumed to be behind the Instagram account, came forward accusing Armie of raping and beating her. "He also committed other acts of violence against me to which I did not consent," she told reporters, while crying. "During those four hours I tried to get away, but he wouldn't let me."

Allred said her client had turned evidence over to authorities, adding, "It is for law enforcement and for the prosecutor to decide if there is sufficient evidence to pursue it. I will only say that Effie has the courage to cooperate with any investigation that may be taking place." Afterward, Los Angeles police confirmed that they have been investigating Armie since February 3.

The allegations raise a raft of complicated questions about consent, BDSM boundaries, and the intersection of abuse claims and social media. Speaking to Vanity Fair weeks before the press conference, Allred acknowledged that consent is especially complex in the BDSM community, where control and power are kinks.

"The public has not been educated on how to view those who engage in BDSM practices. In addition, those who have heard of the BDSM community may have a negative opinion of those who engage in such practices," said Allred. "Part of the problem is that the victim is extremely vulnerable and trusting," she said, "and is often taken advantage of by sexual predators who know that many of their victims will be afraid to report the crimes against them for fear of being blamed and shamed and not believed when they say that they did not consent to crimes against them."

No criminal charges or lawsuits have been filed against the actor at the time of print publication, although the LAPD's investigation was ongoing. Those in Armie's camp mainly blame the scandal on the unverified gossip account @deuxmoi, which amplified the claims to more than 750,000 users in January. "You used to have to verify facts before making allegations like this," said one friend, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "He's being attacked from all different angles on unverified claims.... It's hard for people around him to watch this."

Armie has never confirmed the texts are his own—but the impulses he purportedly described in messages to various women are unsettling at best:

"I am 100% a cannibal.... 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."

"I want to see your brain, your blood, your organs, every part of you. I would definitely bite it. 100%. Or try to fuck it. Not sure which. Probably both."

"If I fucked you into a vegetative state id keep you, feed you, watch you, and keep fucking you.... Till you are so sore and broken.... I can't stop thinking of [fucking] your actual brain."

"Brand you, tattoo you, mark you, shave your head and keep your hair with me, cut a piece of your skin off and make you cook it for me.... 'Who's slave/master relationship is the strongest?' We'd win. When I tell you to slit your wrists and use the blood for anal."

"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."

If Armie is guilty of anything, his friend insists, it's having a penchant for super-kinky sex. Katharine Gates, a social anthropologist and the author of Deviant Desires, told The Cut in January that there is indeed a cannibal form of sex role play that tends to "involve more realistic scenarios... [but i]t's still fantasy—they're not actually eating pieces of people, but you will have one person be the meat and another is the preparer." Victoria Hartmann, author of I Love Dead People: Inside the Minds of Death Fetishists, told GQ that most people into cannibalism role play are not interested in actually harming anyone. Because of the confusion and taboos, Armie's friend thinks that the actor is being unfairly targeted and embarrassed.

One person who has known both Armie and Elizabeth for a decade thinks Armie's "very dry sense of humor" and a lack of context around the text messages are to blame. When the rib-eating, toe-cutting screenshots first appeared online, the person said, "I was like, this is just Armie making really perverse jokes. And then it got conflated with his [seemingly] newfound interest in BDSM sex, which is his prerogative." Sexual abuse allegations are especially charged in a post-#MeToo climate: "There are a lot of nuances to the subject of sex and consent, and it's just not a topic that people are really patient about these days," the person said. "He's a really down-to-earth guy. I think he's just having a moment."

After all of this, Armie has boomeranged back to the Cayman luxury hotel he was so desperate to flee. "Well...my ex (for a very good reason) wife is refusing to come back to america with my children," he wrote on his private Instagram. "So I have to go back to Cayman...which sucks. Except there are a few silver linings." Above the caption was a video that showed a woman, from behind, wearing black lace lingerie and down on all fours on his bed. "Like fucking Ms. Cayman again while I'm down there." (Armie later issued an apology and clarification that the woman in his picture was not the actual Miss Cayman.) Another post read, "Divorce is so fun. Not as fun as drugs. But what is."

According to Brettler, "Armie's primary concern now is seeing his kids."

ARMIE MAY NOT be the first Hammer accused of darkness, but he could be the first to suffer public consequences. His last film—titled, unbelievably, Crisis—premiered in the quiet shadow of its star's P.R. spiral in February. Another film, Death on the Nile, an Agatha Christie adaptation costarring Gal Gadot, is currently scheduled for a September release. The only statement Armie made came in January, when he told the public why he was leaving the Jennifer Lopez rom-com: "I'm not responding to these bullshit claims but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for 4 months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic." Armie's lawyer told Vanity Fair he would not be commenting for this story.

Those who know Armie professionally have had a hard time watching the Armie they knew seemingly implode in a fit of social media posts, bad behavior, and substance abuse in recent months. (Though how would Armie's namesake, Armand, have fared in a social media world?) But neither will anyone speak on record to support him.

Several people in Armie's camp imply that the timing of the allegations, given the divorce proceedings, is suspicious. But a source close to Elizabeth says that she has been "blindsided left, right, and center." She was humiliated enough seeing Armie photographed with a string of women so shortly after filing for divorce, when their children had not even been aware of the split. "The internet is forever, and it kills her that one day her children will see how brazen their father has been, not only with his casual dating and drug use, but with these deeply disturbing allegations."

A person once close to the family has expressed genuine concern for Elizabeth as she moves forward in her custody battle with the Hammers. "I want to tell her to be careful," the person said. " I hope she can just get off that island soon."

Elizabeth has told friends that while she is fearful herself, she is projecting strength for the kids and trying to find occasional humor in the darkness. She's been joking to friends that the only thing that makes sense to her, looking back on her marriage since the allegations surfaced, is the Netflix movie starring Zac Efron as Ted Bundy—Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

People are worried about Casey too. She has been speaking openly about her family's alleged secrets in the wake of the public's newfound interest in the Hammers. Recently, she received a text message from a woman who knows three generations of Hammer men

"Don't go out after dark," the woman texted her. "If you do, go in a group. Park under a light and near a store entrance. Valet as much as you can. Be 'aware' and 'beware.' Always check to make sure you're not being followed.... Watch your surroundings for a stranger's face that appears more than once."

Right now Casey has about $100 in her savings account.

"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." The inheritance settlement lasted her 18 years, and she's been getting by on her own since then, she said, eating Progresso soup and bologna sandwiches.

She joked—sort of—about her own plans. "I'm going to walk into [talent agency] WME," Casey said, "and I'm going to tell them, 'You got rid of the bad Hammer. Now how about you take the good one.' "

If her brother, Michael, had given her even one of the family paintings, she said, she'd be set for life. "I never was taught to save money or to think ahead. I never thought it would end. It's okay, though. Because I broke the cycle, if that makes sense, and got away from the Hammer genetic trail."

©2022 CONDÉ NAST

Holy shit!

But I find it interesting that TWO Lavender Mafia mags have done takedowns of Hammer. Vanity Fair used to write tabloid crap on Michael Jackson and did/does favors for Harvey Weinstein. Buzzfeed is also a mouthpiece for the Hollywood Cabal. Could be they didn't like the thought of Hammer becoming powerful in Tinseltown but luckily for them, he seems like colossal screw up. Conde Nast also owns Vogue, Anna Wintour Central.

[silkscream]

OMG YES WTF HAPPENED WITH THE ARMIE HAMMER THING? IT'S ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I THINK ABOUT EVERY NIGHT

In April 2022, Variety published an article where Hammer's attorney Andrew Brettler released a statement regarding the abuse allegations:[104]

There was never a case. A lot of people think that there was. There was never a lawsuit, never a criminal proceeding. The media are obsessed with that matter. It never turned into litigation or into a criminal charge against anyone. That was a misconception. [...]It was early days of the pandemic, everybody was home, reading all these tweets. You have a well-known handsome actor being accused of salacious, kinky interactions with women. It captured the public’s attention but was completely blown out of proportion — to the extent that there was never anything in court. There wasn’t a matter for me to handle other than to help him manage his image in the press.

[theseshipsshallsail]

The puke sprinkler is going after Kent Schafer now. And ofc tagging her fake Andrew Brettler account in the process. She's so fucking desperate for some crumbs of attention from Armie or someone close ti him it's unreal. Oh, and she's also doxxing random psychologist in the name of metoo and her "trauma".

Hope Kent is smart and either blocks her ass or puts a TRO on her.

Hey, Nonny, perhaps she'd be better off reposting her old pole dancing videos for all the fucks Armie or anyone else gives about her pathetic attention seeking? 🤷‍♀️

[whatiwillsay]

What firm is the anon talking about? That represents bad boys in the armie doc

i guess this one?

[cyarskj1899]

GMA’s Amy Robach and TJ Holmes face off with ABC execs & lawyers in NYC mediation sessions ahead of ‘exit’ from network

Jessica Finn

Updated: 13:45 ET, Jan 20 2023

GOOD Morning America's Amy Robach and TJ Holmes will face off with top ABC executives and lawyers in New York City to finalize their exit from the network, an insider has exclusively told The U.S. Sun.

The well-placed source exclusively has revealed to The U.S. Sun that Amy, 49, and TJ, 45, will be in tense mediation sessions this coming week with their lawyers and ABC's attorneys and top brass as they hammer out the pair's exit package.

4GMA3 hosts Amy Robach and TJ Holmes will face off against ABC in mediation talks next week, a well-placed source told The U.S. SunCredit: BackGrid

4The exit talks come on the heels of new allegations against TJ of an affair with an ABC intern 13 years his juniorCredit: Getty

The TV stars' representatives are also in the city and will be on hand to deal with any public relations fallout.

ABC did not immediately return The U.S. Sun's request for comment. 

As one network source revealed earlier this week, the coupled-up co-hosts are unofficially out at GMA3 and they've been bracing for the worst possible outcome, as the ABC investigation into their inter-office romance drags on into week eight.

The official exit talks come on the heels of a report by the DailyMail that TJ had an alleged affair with yet another woman, this time an ABC employee 13 years his junior, early on in his marriage to estranged wife Marilee Fiebig. 

INVESTIGATION DRAGS ON

A network source said: "ABC's legal team takes a really long time because it's a really small, but absolutely trusted team of attorneys.

"They are definitely dotting their Is and crossing their Ts for Amy and TJ's exit strategy.

"ABC is going to pay a lot of money to make everyone happy and go away very, very quietly.

"There will be iron-clad NDAs signed and everything in their exit contracts will make sure there are no nuclear explosions in the aftermath.

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"This whole situation was handled very poorly, and ABC's legal team has their work cut out for them to make sure everything is just right."

The source also assured that Disney CEO Bob Iger "will absolutely have eyes on the final packages."

Meanwhile, another source with knowledge of the negotiations added that Amy and TJ's attorneys are currently in close contact with the network's legal team.

"They are all working through strategies to make the hosts comfortable enough so that the network can move on from this as quietly as possible," the source said. 

LEGAL WRANGLING 

The GMA3 co-hosts recently brought on two high-powered attorneys as they deal with the network. 

On the heels of the co-hosts hiring the lawyers, a close source said: "It certainly sounds like they are out.

"The couple believes there is no scandal, these are two consenting adults, and had they been put back on air over the holidays, this would all be behind them by now, and nobody would care."

In a call to staffers in early December, ABC News President Kim Godwin said in a call: "After a lot of thought, I am taking Amy and TJ off the air as we figure this out.”

The ABC exec went on to say TJ and Amy's relationship was “not a violation of company policy,” and that the decision to take them out of their anchor chairs was necessary for the “GMA brand as a whole.”

Amy hired powerhouse attorney Andrew Brettler, while TJ hired Eric George.

SHOCKING AFFAIR

TJ and Amy sent shockwaves through the TV world when their relationship was exposedin late November 2022.

The couple, who began anchoring GMA3 together in 2020, allegedly began their romance over the summer, with both claiming they were already separated from their spouses at the time.

They were taken off GMA3 after the public caught wind of their relationship.

A number of hosts have been filling in for them during their time off, including Janai Norman and Gio Benitez.

Since their relationship was made public, Amy and TJ have not kept it hidden.

They were caught kissing and cuddlingduring a steamy getaway to Miami days after Christmas.

The couple also smiled and looked cozy during a grocery run days later.

TJ filed for divorce from his wife, Marilee Fiebig, late last month in New York after 12 years of marriage.

They have a 10-year-old daughter, Sabine, together.

Sources have previously told The U.S. Sun that Amy is working on her divorce from her husband, Andrew Shue, however, neither has filed paperwork as of yet.

4A source previously revealed the pair were definitely out at GMA3, and have been bracing for an all-out exit from the networkCredit: Getty

4The pair were embroiled in a scandalous, off-screen alleged extra-marital affair that rocked GMA3 production and has seen them suspended for weeksCredit: GMA