Armie Hammer addresses claims that he is a cannibal as he explains meaning behind controversial text messages
Armie Hammer has addressed the leaked text conversation which saw him say he was '100 percent cannibal'.
In 2021, Armie Hammer was met with accusations of sexual assault, rape and being a cannibal - all accusations of which he denied.
After a two-year investigation, Los Angeles County District Attorney's office later revealed it wouldn't be charging the actor over the allegations of sexual assault due to 'insufficient evidence'.
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Within the accusations against Hammer, in January 2021, a text conversation involving the actor was publicly leaked seeing Hammer seemingly say he's '100 percent a cannibal'.
The text continued: "F**k, 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."
And in an interview with Louis Theroux for his podcast - aptly titled The Louis Theroux Podcast - Hammer delved into the messages further.
The actor reflected: "I think the, most important context to give these kinds of things is they are one side of a conversation. As you'll notice, of all of the text messages that were released, the person who released them, their side was cut out of the entire conversation.
"It makes it look like I was just rambling to myself. I mean, if you look, there's really no response in any of the excerpts."
Hammer argued 'digitally altered evidence is immediately inadmissible because you have no context' and the screenshots 'could have been a very funny conversation between two people who were joking and pushing each other and egging each other on'.
"In the way that sometimes you see comedians pushing the boundary further and further when they're having a conversation," he added, before resolving, "I'm not going to argue the messages."
One half of the conversation or not, the question remained with Theroux pressing: "Are you a cannibal?"
Hammer responded: "You know what you have to do to actually be a cannibal? You have to actually eat human flesh. So no."
The actor argued the text conversation is an example of when 'sometimes' you can be dating a person and 'you guys are having sex and you are a bit of a provocateur and you are exacerbated by alcohol or drugs or anything like that like It's fun to ruffle feathers and it's fun to push the envelope little by little'.
He argued he never had 'any intention of cutting anything off of anyone or eating anything off of anyone' and 'there was never really anything [he] wanted' but that it was simply 'fun to joke about' when he was 'stoned or drunk'.
"That's where context comes in. You make jokes, I'm sure, with your friends that if I took your phone, and made them public, and removed your friend's half of the jokes, you would probably be in hot water," he continued.
Hammer resolved: "And that's why, this is why I say to everybody who wants to have an opinion on what they've seen or what they've read about me is like, okay, you can say whatever you want.
"You can judge me as much as you want from any public platform that you want. Give me your phone for 45 minutes before you do it. And almost everyone goes, Ooh."
Last year, Hammer told Painful Lessons that he was able to look at the cannibal accusations 'with a sense of distance' and realise how 'hilarious' it was.
He also revealed how 'grateful' he was for what he had happened as prior to the accusations, he 'didn't feel good'.
The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.
Topics: Armie Hammer, Celebrity, Film and TV, Louis Theroux
Poppy Bilderbeck