[imagesource: Rich Polk/Getty]

Armie Hammer is having a pretty average year.

He’s had to step away from a number of upcoming film projects after screengrabs of lurid messages sent between 2016 and 2020, allegedly about his sex life, were leaked by an anonymous social media account under the name @houseofeffie.

Then two of his ex-girlfriends, Courtney Vucekovich and Paige Lorenze, came forward, alleging sexual and emotional abuse.

He has rubbished the claims, but once you’re associated with alleged fantasies of rape and cannibalism, it’s tough to keep your career going.

While this is his first foray into scandal, a look at his wealthy family reveals a trend of making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Image: Armie’s father, Michael Armand Hammer, via Greg Doherty

His aunt Casey Hammer wrote a tell-all memoir Surviving My Birthright, which details, per The Telegraph, a “nightmarish atmosphere” of a childhood dominated by the alleged abuses of her late father Julian (Armie’s grandfather).

She recalls horrifying instances of violence like waking up on Christmas morning to the sound of a gunshot, before finding her father brandishing a loaded weapon at her mother.

Julian was apparently an alcoholic and meth addict, whose bouts of violence got worse as his addiction worsened.

He mother eventually left him and took Casey to Washington, but she would have to visit her father from time to time.

In frequent weekend trips back to California, Casey describes distracting herself with dolls as drug-fueled orgies took place in the adjoining rooms, of finding pornographic photos of her father and his girlfriends, of being chased through the house by an enraged and very high ex-girlfriend of her father’s with a carving knife.

Her grandfather, Occidental Petroleum magnate Armand appears now and then in the memoir and seemed to have an uneasy relationship with his granddaughter, who says that she spent her childhood craving his attention.

His reputation was a bizarre mixture of the crooked and benevolent: during the 1970s, Occidental was charged in four different actions with misdeeds ranging from giving out misleading earnings projections to using corporate funds for illegal political contributions and foreign payments.

But, he also spent $10 million in cancer research grants.

Image: Oil tycoon Armand Hammer, who is Armie Hammer’s great grandfather, via Paul Harris

Then there’s Armie’s father.

At one point, she claims, Julian offered his son a million dollars for his girlfriend.  In more recent years, Michael settled a multi-million case brought against him and the Knoedler Art Gallery, which he inherited from his grandfather, after it sold forged paintings, including a $5.5 million fake Mark Rothko, to wealthy clients without his knowledge.

Casey says that when it comes to Armie, “the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree”.

She reckons the environment that he grew up in has a lot to do with what he is being accused of.

More from Casey here.

[source:telegraph]