'You learn to be a MONSTER': Armie Hammer's aunt Casey makes shocking claims about family's violent history
Armie Hammer's Aunt Casey has opened up on how she was not surprised when the disturbing allegations against the 'Call Me by Your Name' star surfaced. Months ago, an anonymous Instagram account released screenshots, claiming they were text messages Hammer had sent to various women. The messages contained references to sexual fantasies including violence, rape, and cannibalism. Hammer has maintained that the messages are not real.
“I wasn’t shocked when the allegations came forward,” Casey Hammer told The Daily Beast. “Based on my experiences in my family, I suffered from abuse. It was just a way of life. You don’t wake up one day and become a monster—it’s learned behavior. Once [the allegations] started unfolding, I was like, here we go, another Hammer man and something that’s being said about them.”
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Casey said that it was the media’s coverage of the allegations against Hammer that shocked her. “The focus seemed to be about Armie being ‘a cannibal’ or what was going to happen to his career or ‘cancel culture,’ but it’s like, wait a minute—let’s shift the light onto the victims,” she said. “What about the people that are scarred for life because of all that happened?”
Casey will feature a new three-part docuseries, 'House of Hammer', premiering on Discovery+ on September 2. The series will include conversations with Hammer's ex-girlfriends Courtney Vucekovich and Julia Morrison about the alleged abuse they endured at the hand of the actor. Casey, meanwhile, will be speaking out about her own family.
“As shocking as what he’s doing right now, there’s a generational pattern that’s been in play for a very long time and that no one took notice of,” Casey said. "It just didn’t start there—it goes way back.” Casey is the daughter of Julian Hammer, who is the only son of Armand Hammer. She is said to be one of few women in the family. “All my life, I was told I was a mistake,” Casey said. "I was supposed to be a boy, and my name would have a boy’s spelling regardless.”
Casey opened up in 'House of Hammer' about how there were numerous underage mistresses and drugs in her family. She was also a witness to a lot of violence, most of it from her own father. Julian seemed to enjoy torturing people around him with guns.
“As a little girl, holding a phone book and being shot at, most people are horrified by that. But to me, it was a normal thing that happened in my family,” said Casey. In her memoir 'Surviving My Birthright', Casey alleged that her father sexually abused her as a child and harmed others in the family.
“It was all I knew,” Casey said of her upbringing. “Back then you didn’t have social media, so you just thought this was the way normal rich, famous, wealthy people acted in Los Angeles. Behind closed doors, it was a free-for-all. Once you walked outside, my grandfather controlled the narrative. As long as you didn’t embarrass him, were camera-ready, and acted a certain way, you were fine. If you did anything to mess up, you were threatened with punishments and being disowned.”
Julian was accused of shooting a friend dead in 1955. Julian, who has apparently owed the man a $400 gambling debt, suspected that he was making advances on his wife. A friend of Casey's grandfather, Armand, delivered $50,000 in cash to a lawyer in Los Angeles. The charges were dismissed after Julian said the murder was committed in self-defense.
“My father got away with murder pretty much, and my grandfather made it go away,” Casey said. “As a child, you witness all this bad behavior—people get bought off, doors are opened by the name ‘Hammer’—and it was quite exhilarating and terrifying. You saw presidents, royalty, and Hollywood all want to be a part of this secret society, in a sense.”
Casey, now 62, was 30 when her grandfather died. At the time, she claimed, she had to give up her career in interior design and “babysit” her father “so he didn’t blow his brains out.” Casey said Julian would be high on cocaine and meth and would regularly suffer delusions. “I let him hold a .357 Magnum to my temple every hour and make me open my eyes to see if I was possessed by aliens, and if I was, he was going to shoot me,” Casey recalled. “I chose to put myself in that situation for weeks as an adult. People focus on the physical and sexual abuse, but mental abuse can go a lot farther in terms of the brainwashing and the controlling.”
“I’m here to shine a light on accountability. In my family, it was powerful, wealthy, generational bad behavior that went unaccounted for, and now it’s time for it to stop. When #MeToo started, it showed you about the workplace. There needs to be a #MeToo for the home," she added.
Casey explained how 'House of Hammer' would also shed light on the “bright, intelligent women” who have been abused by the Hammer men. In fact, some of the women even said they were harmed by her Armie. “The beauty of it is talking about consent. A lot of people don’t understand what that really means,” Casey said. “We’re not here to judge your behaviors or preferences, but if you’re involved in something and it gets to a point where it doesn’t feel good or it’s not comfortable and you want to stop, the minute you say ‘no’ it should stop—and if it doesn’t, that’s when it becomes criminal.”
Of Armie's victims, she said, "To see how brave they are to come forward, to me, was so empowering, because it’s scary nowadays on social media. Hopefully, this helps others come forward and say ‘no’ to being abused.”