Through tears on Thursday, a 24-year-old woman named Effie recalled an alleged sexual assault by the actor Armie Hammer. Speaking at a Zoom press conference alongside her lawyer, Gloria Allred, Effie claimed that the violent encounter occurred nearly four years ago.
“On April 24, 2017, Armie Hammer violently raped me for over four hours in Los Angeles, during which he repeatedly slammed my head against a wall, bruising my face. He also committed other acts of violence against me to which I did not consent. For example, he beat my feet with a crop so they would hurt with every step I took for the next week. During those four hours I tried to get away, but he wouldn’t let me. I thought that he was going to kill me.”
The alleged assault ended, Effie said, when Hammer “left with no concern for my well-being.”
Effie said that she felt she was in love with Hammer at the time.
“The relationship progressed rapidly, and the emotions from both sides became really intense. Looking back, it is now clear to me he was employing manipulation tactics in order to exert control over me until I started to lose myself. He would often test my devotion to him, slyly removing and crossing my boundaries, as he became increasingly more violent.
“I tried so hard to justify his actions, even to the point of responding to him in a way that did not reflect my true feelings,” she claimed. “I have lived in fear of him, and I have tried to dismiss his actions as a twisted kind of love. His abuse traumatized me.
“He abused me mentally, emotionally, and sexually,” said Effie, claiming to have been haunted by flashbacks so excruciating that she “contemplated suicide.”
Asked if Effie would be pressing charges against the actor, Allred said that her client provided “what she thinks might be relevant [evidence] to law enforcement, and then 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.”
Allred called on Hammer to work with authorities on any potential investigations rather than let his lawyers speak for him.
“I feel immense guilt for not speaking out sooner because I feel like I may have been able to help others not become victims,” said Effie, who now lives in Europe. “I want other survivors of sexual assault around the world to feel empowered.”
After Effie made her statement, Allred shared a photo of Effie and Hammer smiling and hugging outside the WME agency in Los Angeles—where Hammer was formerly a client. Allred said the photo was taken prior to the assault.
Allred declined to disclose her client’s last name or reveal whether her client was the woman behind the @houseofeffie Instagram account, which has posted screenshots of messages in which Hammer allegedly described extreme BDSM scenarios.
Minutes after the press conference, Hammer’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, sent out a strongly worded response to the press conference allegations, as well as a screenshot purportedly showing messages Effie had sent to Hammer. (At the time of publication, neither Effie nor Allred had responded to Brettler’s refutation.)
“Effie’s…own correspondence with Mr. Hammer undermines and refutes her outrageous allegations. As recently as July 18, 2020, [she] sent graphic texts to Mr. Hammer telling him what she wanted him to do to her. Mr. Hammer responded making it clear that he did not want to maintain that type of relationship with her. The screenshot…is just one of hundreds [she] sent to Mr. Hammer.
“It was never Mr. Hammer’s intention to embarrass or expose [her] fetishes or kinky sexual desires, but she has now escalated this matter to another level by hiring a civil lawyer to host a public press conference. With the truth on his side, Mr. Hammer welcomes the opportunity to set the record straight.
“From day one, Mr. Hammer has maintained that all of his interactions with [her]—and every other sexual partner of his for that matter—have been completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory. [Her] attention-seeking and ill-advised legal bid will only make it more difficult for real victims of sexual violence to get the justice they deserve.”
In the months since Armie Hammer was accused of emotional abuse, manipulation, and violence by women on social media, the actor has waved off the allegations through his attorney. “All interactions between Mr. Hammer and his former partner were consensual,” Brettler told Vanity Fair earlier this month. “They were fully discussed, agreed upon in advance with his partners, and mutually participatory.”
Another woman who dated Hammer, Paige Lorenze, previously told Vanity Fair that she was inspired to come forward and speak about her own allegedly traumatic experiences with the actor after seeing the allegations on Instagram.
“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,’” she said. “The scariest part of it is that I did love him in a way,” said Lorenze. “I would’ve let him kind of do anything. He had a certain hold over me.”
The Hammer scandal ballooned back in January, when screenshots that seemed to show the actor describing sexual fantasies involving rape and cannibalism began to circulate. Shortly after, Hammer stepped away from two high-profile projects—a rom-com with Jennifer Lopez and a Paramount series about the making of The Godfather. His agency, WME, dropped him not long after that.
The actor is currently in the Cayman Islands and engaged in divorce proceedings with Elizabeth Chambers, his wife of 10 years and the mother of his two young children. The only public statement the actor has made referencing the allegations came in January, when he explained why he was stepping away from the J. Lo film: “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.”
Brettler previously defended his client by saying, “The stories perpetuated on social media were designed to be salacious in an effort to harm Mr. Hammer, but that does not make them true…. Armie’s primary concern now is seeing his kids.”
The allegations have raised complicated questions about consent, BDSM boundaries, and the intersection of abuse claims and social media. Allred previously told Vanity Fair 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. She noted that even if adults “consent to some BDSM practices, they still have a right to withhold consent to other practices.”
“Part of the problem is that the victim is extremely vulnerable and trusting,” she continued, “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.”
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