Armie Hammer is finally ready to address the elephant in the room.
During a guest appearance on the Monday, June 17, episode of the "Painful Lessons" podcast, the embattled actor opened up about the controversy he found himself in the middle of in 2021, when he was first accused of expressing sexual fantasies about cannibalism and rape via unverified text messages.
"There were things that people were saying about me that just felt so outlandish … that I was a cannibal. Now I'm able to sort of look at it with a sense of distance and perspective and be like, 'that's hilarious,'" the Call Me by Your Name star recalled.
"People called me a cannibal, and everyone believed them," he continued. "They’re like, 'Yep, that guy ate people.' Like, what? What are you talking about? Do you know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to eat people. How am I going to be a cannibal? It was bizarre."
While the situation effectively "canceled" Hammer in terms of losing the respect and support of fans and social media users, the 37-year-old insisted he was "grateful for every single bit of" what he went through.
"It’s almost like a neutron bomb went off in my life," explained Hammer, whose ex-wife, Elizabeth Chambers, filed for divorce from theactor in July 2020.
He admitted: "It killed me, it killed my ego, it killed all the people around me that I thought were my friends that weren’t — all of those people, in a flash, went away. But the buildings were still standing. I’m still here, I still have my health, and I’m really grateful for that."
Now, Hammer said he's "actually" reached "a place where I’m really grateful for it because where I was in my life before all of that stuff happened to me."
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"I didn’t feel good. I never felt satisfied, I never had enough. I never was in a place where I was happy with myself — where I had self-esteem," expressed the dad-of-two, who shares his daughter, Harper, 9, and son, Ford, 7, with Chambers, 41.
While he has come to terms with the reality of his scandalous past, Hammer acknowledged his career is "nowhere" considering he is no longer a "viable commodity" within the world of Hollywood.
The Long Ranger actor is, however, working on writing a script with a friend, he revealed.