Actor Armie Hammer‘s ex-girlfriend Courtney Vucekovich lent some credence to the shocking Instagram direct messages that leaked on social media last week. The messages allegedly came from Hammer’s Instagram account and described rape fantasies and cannibalism. Although Hammer called the claims “bulls—,” he still withdrew from a movie co-starring Jennifer Lopez in the fallout.
Vucekovich told Page Six Hammer once told her he wanted to “break my rib and barbecue and eat it.” Although she thought it was “weird,” Vucekovich initially overlooked the strange comment. “He says, ‘I want to take a bite out of you.’ If I had a little cut on my hand, he’d like suck it or lick it. That’s about as weird as we got,” Vucekovich, who created the app Flashd, explained.
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The app creator dated Hammer from June to October 2020. She could not say if the viral screenshots were real, but claimed the Call Me By Your Name actor “likes the idea of skin in his teeth.” She also accused Hammer of being emotionally abusive during their relationship. “He enters your life in such a big way. He’s such a captivating person,” Vucekovich, 30, said. “He has such a presence and he’s aware of that and he uses it in such a way that most women would think, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing,’ but especially young women, that’s kind of the scary part — how good he is at active manipulation and making you feel like he’s never felt this way about anybody.”
Hammer “quickly grooms you in the relationship,” she continued, adding that Hammer will be captivating and charming while “grooming you for these things that are darker and heavier and consuming.” By consuming, Vucekovich meant “mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, just everything.” She also described him as a “chameleon” who changes into “exactly who you need him to be.”
Vucecokich felt she “wasn’t safe” during the relationship, noting how he would text her 100 times a day when they were apart. She also accused him of frequently drinking and doing drugs. “He did some things with me that I wasn’t comfortable with,” Vucekovich told Page Six. “For God knows what reason, he convinced me that these things were OK and he put me in some dangerous situations where I was not OK, where he was heavily drinking, and I wasn’t drinking that way and it scared me. I didn’t feel comfortable.”
In an exclusive with The Daily Mail, Vucecokich went on to share how she checked into therapy for PTSD due to their “warped relationship,” adding he was a “very dark, twisted person” who would groom her and “brilliantly” manipulate her to a point of fear. “He’s a very charming, intense human being. But once you start talking to him, he’s pretty aggressive right from the start. Not violent, but just sexually aggressive in the way he speaks.”
She continued: “He’s magnetic, but that has helped him get away with this stuff. He’s a very charming, larger-than-life personality. He’s very affectionate, he makes you feel very safe and kind of on top of the world. Then little by little, it gets deeper and darker. He kind of gets obsessed with you. At first, you feel really safe, and then it gets a little strange. And then it gets more and more, and little by little you’re like ‘what’s happened?’ It’s very heavy. I just learned the word ‘lovebomb’ and that’s definitely what he does.”
Last weekend, alleged direct messages between Hammer and a woman surfaced on Twitter and quickly went viral. In one message, Hammer allegedly wrote, “I am 100% a cannibal. I want to eat you.” In other messages, he allegedly claimed he had a desire to drink women’s blood. There were some questions about the veracity of the messages, but writer Jessica Ciencin Henriquez claimed they were real. Henriquez went on a date with Hammer in September.
On Wednesday, Hammer withdrew from Shotgun Wedding, a romantic comedy co-starring Lopez. “I’m not responding to these bulls— claims, but in light of the vicious and spurious online attacks against me, I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for four months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic,” Hammer said in a statement. “Lionsgate is supporting me in this and I’m grateful to them for that.”
The leaked text messages come while Hammer is in the midst of a custody battle with his estranged wife, Elizabeth Chambers. The two announced their split in July 2020. They are parents to two children, Harper, 6, and Ford, 3.
