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The Real Reason Armie Hammer’s Aunt Casey Is In The Disturbing House Of Hammer Documentary
“I didn’t want to just be a soundbite for his implosion,” Casey, who was “triggered” watching the doc, tells Bustle.
Trigger Warning: This piece contains mentions of prior allegations of sexual assault. Looking back on The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name, Armie Hammer’s aunt Casey notices an irony. Armie gained fame and critical acclaim playing twins who came from family wealth and then a man who had an affair. These themes feature heavily in House of Hammer, the Discovery+ docuseries about Armie’s real-life family. “Art imitates life ... it’s interesting, people’s choices,” Casey tells Bustle ahead of the Sept. 2 premiere of the doc, which includes her first-hand accounts of the generations-spanning “dark misdeeds” of the men in the Hammer family.
But talking about her nephew isn’t actually why Casey participated in the documentary. “For me it wasn’t so much about shining a light on his career or his headlines or what’s next for him,” Casey says. “It’s more about what’s next for the survivors. I mean, they live with the scars of what was done to them. They’re going to live with that the rest of their lives.”
The documentary devotes a significant amount of time to the victims allegedly harmed by the Hammers. Casey knows what that’s like. “I’ve watched it a few times and I still get triggered,” she says. The docuseries covers multiple Hammer men, including Armie’s great-grandfather, Armand; grandfather, Julian; and father, Michael. Reports of murder and physical abuse appear throughout the family’s storied record, leading up to allegations of sexual misconduct and assault made against Armie in 2021. (Armie has repeatedly denied the allegations against him; Bustle has reached out to Armie’s lawyer Andrew Brettler for comment about House of Hammer and the ongoing investigation into the allegations, but did not get a response yet.)
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This history has been explored before in Edward Jay Epstein’s The Secret History of Armand Hammer in 1996, and Casey’s Surviving My Birthright, which she self-published two decades later. “It took about 10 years to write,” she says. “Basically, it was just journaling and trying to make sense of what I was feeling, either good or bad, and just trying to wrap myself around my memories ... It was very empowering when I held it. It was very freeing and fabulous.”
Casey’s book was only ever meant as a “healing” exercise, she explains, and it might have stayed that way, if not for the allegations made against Armie that surfaced in 2021. Women came forward to share their experiences with him, after alleged texts from him circulated social media — screenshots that, as Vanity Fair reported at the time, detailed fantasies about cannibalism and sexual violence. Shortly after the exposé, a woman named Effie accused Armie of rape and physical abuse.
“House of Hammer is really powerful and scary and terrifying, but yet the brave women that came forward and everyone that was participating in it, I’m grateful for it.”
The allegations led to a heightened awareness of the Hammer family and Casey’s book, helping her discover what she calls her “purpose” along the way. “I want to be an advocate for victims and survivors and help them realize they’re not alone,” Casey says. “So by my nephew causing all this last year to be all of a sudden in the limelight, it got people interested in a whole other way. I didn’t want to just be a soundbite for his implosion.”
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Casey isn’t on speaking terms with the rest of the Hammers, including Armie, who was recently reported to be selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands, according to TMZ. “When my mom passed 14 years ago, 13 years ago, she was the last thread that kept us all together,” Casey says. “After she passed, we separated, and it’s probably best that none of us speak to each other.”
Moving forward, Casey says, she hopes for a “full-circle” moment that transforms what her family name means to people. “I can’t change the past and I can’t change the future,” she says. “All I can do is focus on right now and breathe and stay in the moment and just do a gut feeling.” The Surviving My Birthright author says she’s currently writing a sequel “to help with [her] life,” and would also like to give TED Talks about her experience and how to heal.
“No one should be abused. I don’t care how much money you have or don’t have or your social background. It’s not right,” Casey says. “When I meet people that have been abused or that have read my book — and hopefully after they see House of Hammer — they say, “Oh my God, you helped me. You helped to realize I wasn’t alone. House of Hammer is really powerful and scary and terrifying, but yet the brave women that came forward and everyone that was participating in it, I’m grateful for it. I can’t go on enough about how proud I am of it.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org.
