There’s a sliding scale for wives of terrible men. Is the wife complicit in her husband’s awful behavior? Is she a co-conspirator? Did she know something was up and just looked the other way? Or did she have no idea that she was married to a deeply disturbed man? I still don’t know where Elizabeth Chambers falls. I tend to believe that she had a pretty good idea of Armie Hammer’s affairs, especially in the last few years of their marriage, but she believed everything was consensual. What did she know beyond that? I have no idea. And Elizabeth isn’t spilling. She’s still in Grand Cayman with her children, staying with Armie’s family. She’s only posted three Instagrams in the past month, as everything devolved with her estranged husband, and his victims began coming out to tell their stories. She was asked about why she’s been relatively quiet online and her response was interesting:
Elizabeth Chambers is focused on “healing” as her estranged husband, Armie Hammer, faces a sexual assault investigation by the LAPD. The Bird Bakery founder told fans on Instagram that she’s been concentrating on herself and her family when asked why she’s been “quiet” on the platform.
“Focusing on healing, my babes and work,” Chambers wrote during an “Ask Me Anything” Q&A over a photo of her holding a heart-shaped crystal against a sunset. “A lot I’ve wanted to share, but hasn’t felt right ATM [at the moment].”
The LAPD confirmed to Page Six this month that its sexual crimes unit launched an investigation into the “Call Me by Your Name” actor after a woman named Effie came forward and claimed Hammer had “violently” raped her.
“He became increasingly more violent,” Effie claimed in a March press conference with attorney Gloria Allred. “I thought he was going to kill me.” Effie also claimed Hammer abused her “mentally, emotionally and sexually” during their four-year relationship, which allegedly started on Facebook in 2016 during his marriage to Chambers.
In retrospect, I’m a little bit surprised that Chambers didn’t give any kind of public comment when the LAPD opened an investigation into Armie, or when Effie gave that press conference with Gloria Allred. Then again, Elizabeth’s statement back in February was pretty thorough – she said, in part, “I am shocked, heartbroken, and devastated. Heartbreak aside, I am listening, and will continue to listen and educate myself on these delicate matters. I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know…I support any victim of assault or abuse and urge anyone who has experienced this pain to seek the help she or he needs to heal.”
It reminds me of that comment near the end of the Vanity Fair story about Armie too, which is that Elizabeth needs to be careful and she needs to get away from his entire family. I hope she’s taking this time to talk to lawyers and protect herself and her kids legally, financially, physically and emotionally.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
But she’s staying with Armie’s family in the Cayman’s – how is that extricating herself?
Because they were down there when the shutdown happened and the Cayman’s are taking it very seriously and you can go to jail if you break protocol.
It was smart for her to stay because America cannot get it together.
That part I understand. But Elizabeth also added “I need to be careful and need to get away from his entire family”. Which is absolutely not happening here.
@Mrs. Peel I don’t believe that comment was from Elizabeth but rather someone quoted in the story. She wasn’t a source (at least not a named one) in that article. I don’t think we quite know her relationship with the extended family. Hammer was making veiled complaints about having to get drug tested before seeing his kids so if the family is supporting her in that (not to mention providing luxury accommodation and private school) I could see how she would feel OK in the situation. Is that a good decision? Ehhhhhhh. I guess we will see. Scary stuff overall.
My understanding is that his family is supporting her in this. It also seems like his family is a total trash fire of dysfunction. Maybe both things are true and are in tension? His relatives might be people whose support she and the kids need right now and also might be people her friends find worrisome.
Terrible
I’m curious how the current visitation with his kids is set up. Is he allowed to see them? I’m sure she’d like to keep them away from him but can she legally?
I recall some veiled whining from him before he went social media silent about a few things including drug testing. My guess is there is an arrangement in place for supervised visitation with clean drug tests. Just a hunch.
On his ‘private’ Instagram he made multiple references to having to do drug-testing before seeing his kids. He also joked about knowing how to get false negatives ☹️
Uh, no. She is not responsible for anything that he did, and she doesn’t owe anyone public statements. Even if she knew he was cheating, that doesn’t make her complicit – it makes her also a victim. Trying to extract yourself from any relationship of this length is difficult, let alone one with so much difficulty and trauma, as well as them sharing children.
This times 1000
Exactly. I doubt she had any idea how bad it was, and learning that has to be traumatic. Plus she’s raising the kids solo too. She deserves privacy, and doesn’t ever have to speak publicly on this if she chooses not to.
His family is old money, and with that comes lots of connections and power. She is in a very delicate position, especially since she’s isolated on the family compound on an island under covid restrictions. Cayman authorities are undoubtedly subject to heavy influence from the family which makes their position precarious as well. This has all the makings of a Katie-Holmes-escape-from-Tom-Cruise situation; I hope her and the children are safe.
She’s not responsible for what he did. I believe that she didn’t know the half of what was going on with him, even if she was aware he was having affairs. I think it’s smart, legally and emotionally, for her to just take care of herself and her kids and not make public statements at the moment.
Chambers and Hammer are still working out their divorce. I’m not going to pass judgment on her for being quiet – courts can and do hold it against parents if they disparage the other parent publicly or in front of the children. If I were her, my number one priority would be making sure that I had sole custody and that his visitation was monitored.
I don’t like the assumption that’s often made that the partner must have known. Men – usually men – have had bigamous marriages for decades with two different families and neither wife has known about the other. And they weren’t multi millionaire globes trotters either. I’m not a big fan of hers – too many photos of the kids put out there – but it must be tough for all of them.
She’s definitely not responsible for his behavior but i am curious as to how much she knew about. I think it’s pretty hard to hide his level of drug use from a spouse so I think she had to be aware at some point and it sounded like they had an open marriage but she probably didn’t realize he was being so abusive to his victims. When you marry into that kind of wealth I think you know you’ll look the other way about a lot of things but these recent revelations are too much.
I follow Elizabeth on Instagram and I noticed something towards to end of the marriage, she was traveling with him on location when he was filming, Like, totally uprooted herself and the kids to go on location. I think she was aware of the drug use and was trying to help in any way she can to keep him in check while he was completing filming.
He doesn’t have a bad reputation on set and comes in and completes his job, but I wondered if she started traveling with him in order to keep that going. I fell the same way about her in that regard as I do Jennifer Garner, if they did not do the heavy lifting, they were damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
I’m sorry but of course she knew. She is 40 years old and they’ve been together for 13 years, married for 10 of those. She’s not some little doe eyed young wife. She allegedly was sleeping with her husband’s friend for a long time too. I think they had an open marriage but kept up with the Insta perfect family but everything fell apart when they were locked up together for months during the shut down. Armie had a four year long affair with Effie. She may not have known the extent of the stuff that he was into but she knew her husband. I’m not blaming her and I feel for her, mostly because I can’t imagine how embarrassed she must feel, but let’s not pretend like sge was clueless.
With that said, Effie lost all credibility in my eyes when she posted about how she was getting off on the thought of Armie abusing other women.
I still believe Effie’s rape allegation though. It’s clear, in my opinion, that she’s still in love with him and would totally put herself in harm’s way again if he wanted to get back. That doesn’t mean her story about the rape is no longer believable.
Also her stories about him getting her to take “morning after” pills were very sad to read about. She’s still only like 24 and was maybe 19 or 20 when they started an affair.
All of these articles about army keep making me think back to this Celebitchy post from 2013. I remember thinking at the time that dude had some pretty messed up ideas about consensual kink….
https://www.celebitchy.com/305044/armie_hammer_respects_his_feminist_wife_too_much_to_pull_her_hair_during_sex/
He also said something about his wife saying he has no frontal lobe. She knew he was into kink stuff but how would she even know he was allegedly raping women and abusing them? She’s not responsible for his behaviour. Towards the end they were fighting all the time anyway and spending a lot of time apart. She uses her kids to promote her bakery chain and doesn’t protect their privacy but otherwise seems like a good mother.