"I experienced an ego death, a career death, a financial death"
In early 2021, actor Armie Hammer was accused of sexual abuse abruptly ending his career. Since then he has been cleared of the charges due to "insufficient evidence".
Speaking about the experience on Bill Maher’s Club Random, Hammer said that he’s "broke" but "happier than ever".
"The good place only comes from walking through hell," he said. "It was a brutal experience."
He continued, "Someone might look at me and go, 'Yeah, but financially you are in a very different position than you’ve ever been in your entire life.' And I look at that and I go, 'Yeah, and you know what, it’s taught me is that I don’t need that because I’ve never been happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life.'"
Hammer is now sober and used the time to go to rehab to battle his addictions to drugs, alcohol and sex.
"Therapy for me has been a life changer," he said. "I needed an adjustment. There was some s*** going on. Here’s what I think would have happened had none of this gone on and like the cataclysmic tectonic shift in my life wouldn’t have happened. My life would have kept going exactly as it was, and I know that would ultimately only lead in one place and that’s death."
He added, "I experienced an ego death, a career death, a financial death – all of these things, right? And [Carl] Jung talks about this. Joseph Campbell talks about this. You’ve got to die, and once you die you can then be reborn. A phoenix isn’t going to rise if there’s no ashes."
Watch Hammer’s full interview below: