Armie Hammer has claimed that he carved his initial into his former partner's body with her consent—even though she has previously alleged she was coerced.
Bill Maher sat down with the actor for Sunday's episode of his podcast, Club Random With Bill Maher. The pair discussed cancel culture on the show, including Hammer's break from the spotlight following sexual assault allegations.
The Call Me by Your Name star was dropped by his talent agency, WME, in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, physical abuse and having cannibalism fantasies. Hammer denied any wrongdoing, but his public image took a major hit, with the 37-year-old reportedly losing several roles as a result.
One such woman to come forward was influencer and entrepreneur Paige Lorenze, who claimed that when she dated Hammer he sexually coerced her, bruised her and carved an "A" into her pubic area. She also alleged he took graphic photos of her without consent.
Hammer has now shared his thoughts on the situation, claiming that before engaging in BDSM—which stands for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism—there were negotiated boundaries.
Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Hammer and Lorenze for comment on Wednesday.
When Maher asked Hammer if he sterilized the knife before branding anyone, he said it was "part of [a] whole bigger picture."
"It's like you get into these things, you get in these moods, you get in these whatever. Especially if you're inebriated or especially if whatever, you start to go, 'this is a great idea,'" the actor said.
"And it's like, wait, people get tattoos of each other's initials all the time. And by the way, I'm not performing surgery, you know, it's like all of these things in a consensual relationship that were pre-discussed and all of these things that were consented to, whatever they might have been, between two people."
Hammer said there are limits, and when engaging with BDSM "we want to keep people safe."
"You didn't just start doing it?" Maher asked later in the episode, to which Hammer responded: "No, no, no, no, no, no, it was, it—I mean—"
"Oh, what is that?" Maher quipped as he pretended to be branded.
Hammer jokingly said "surprise" before he told Maher that this wasn't the case.
"It wasn't that? She knew it was happening?" Maher asked.
"Yeah and it's like something you talk about before and like, and I was always very careful about doing that about like being like, 'let's discuss what this is going to be and then also, if you want to stop at any point say "orange" and we will pause and we'll just hold for a second or say "red" and we will stop, stop," Hammer said.
When Maher cut in to say they had a safe word, Hammer said that they did: "[We had] two: one for pause one for stop. Pause is like 'I'm feeling a little overwhelmed but I don't want to stop, like just give me a second because this is intense.'"
When the podcast host cut in to question whether Hammer "actually did stop," Armie said he did.
The actor continued: "That's, that's, that's essential for people to engage in, in sort of like, intense behavior."
Maher then brought Hammer's attention to an article he read, in which Hammer said he can only feel good about a sexual interaction with someone if the other person is feeling good too.
"I feel like some of the stuff they weren't feeling good about it, it did make you feel good. Like, I feel like you were into their pain," Maher said.
"Well if someone is a masochist, then when they're not feeling good, they're feeling good," Hammer responded as Maher laughed. "You know? Like that's, that's—and by the way, you don't engage in stuff like this with someone who doesn't enjoy it. Like you can talk to somebody and go, 'this is what I'm into,' and they can go, 'oh that's interesting I've never tried it, I'd be interested to try it.'
"And then all of a sudden you go, 'OK well let's, let's see how we slowly try this world for you,' and that's one way to do it or you have the conversation with someone and they go, 'I'm not into that at all,' and you go, 'OK then we'll have normal, me on top, lights off sex like that's fine too.'"
Maher added: "It's so, it's so, it's—for the, for the regular mind—it's hard to process."
Hammer went on to theorize that a lot of the behavior he was engaging in was due to extenuating circumstances, such as the claim that he was molested when he was 13 years old.
"It was [by] a member of clergy," he told Maher, disclosing that the abuse had gone on for approximately a year.
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