Armie Hammer Called His Divorce a "Seriously Seismic Event"

From Oprah Magazine

• Armie Hammer stars as Max de Winter in the Netflix adaptation of the novel Rebecca.

• In July 2020, Hammer and his wife of ten years, Elizabeth Chambers, announced their separation.

• Speaking to British GQ, Hammer called his divorcee a "seriously seismic event."

It can be hard to tell which is more transfixing: Armie Hammer on screen, or Armie Hammer off screen. Recently, the 34-year-old actor has starred in a string of love stories—most notably, the achingly romantic Call Me By Your Name in 2017. Now, he's playing the troubled—and troubling—leading man Maxim de Winter in the Netflix adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.

In addition to his high-profile roles, Hammer also makes the news for his own romantic life. In July of 2020, Hammer and his wife of a decade, Elizabeth Chambers, 38, announced their divorce in a joint statement on Instagram. A model and culinary entrepreneur, Chambers is the owner and CEO of Bird Bakery in San Antonio and Dallas, and the host of three Food Network shows.

"Thirteen years as best friends, soulmates, partners and then parents. It has been an incredible journey, but together, we’ve decided to turn the page and move on from our marriage," the caption of identical Instagram posts read.

It was a sharp turnaround from Chambers's post only two months prior, which celebrated their years together. "Happy Anniversary, my love. I’m beyond grateful for you, this decade, our family and the dreamiest Friday night anniversary sunset," she wrote, along with a photo of their wedding and of them with their two children on their anniversary, ten years later.

At the time of the announcement, the couple was quarantining in Grand Cayman with their two children, Harper, 5, and Ford, 3. According to Hammer, quarantine in the Cayman Islands—which had a very strict lockdown—was intense, and not in a good way.

"It was a very complicated, intense situation, with big personalities all locked in a little tiny place....I’d never dealt with anything like that before in my life, so I didn’t have the tools. It was just this thing that snuck up on everybody. I don’t think I handled it very well. I think, to be quite frank, I came very close to completely losing my mind," he told British GQ.

After the separation, Hammer returned to L.A., where he is refurbishing a motel with a friend. Chambers and the children remain in the Cayman Islands, where Hammer grew up. In September, Harper and Ford began their academic year in the same Cayman Islands school that he attended.

Through the couple called for "privacy" in their announcement, Hammer has been open about the emotional toll of the separation. "A separation like this is a seriously seismic event in someone’s life. And there’s a lot of shifting and a lot of growing pains and a lot of changes. Change is a universal constant. I mean, change is not a bad thing always, but that doesn’t mean it’s painless," Hammer told GQ.

According to Hammer, their goal is to go about the separation in a way that "affects [their] children the least." Per court documents, Hammer is filing for joint custody of their children.

Until this point, Chambers and Hammer had been open with their love story. They met back in 2006, when Hammer was about 20, and Chambers about 24. She was dating one of his friends, so they remained friends for roughly two years.

"Our friendship continued to grow and grow until one day when I was like, ‘I can’t be friends with you anymore. You’ve got to break up with your boyfriend, and we’ve got to start dating," Hammer told Vulture in 2017.

They began dating in 2008, and married in 2010. Hammer didn't see the point in waiting to walk down the aisle. "I like the idea of marriage," he told E! in 2013. "I like the idea that I have a best friend. It's comforting."

Chambers echoed similar sentiments while speaking to Town and Country the same year. "When we finally got together, Armie really wanted to get married. He sat me down and said, 'Look, we don't have to do this. We could just go our own ways, and then one day you'll be 40 and divorced and we'll run into each other, and we'll laugh and go out to dinner and have this same connection, and we'll wonder why we wasted all of that time. Or we could just do it now and enjoy the ride,'" Chambers said.

The ride, it seems, has reached a new phase. Chambers is moving on with her future: She recently launched a line of face shields for kids, and she is working to raise money for food banks in San Antonio and the Cayman Islands. Her Instagram shows a thriving social life in the Cayman Islands. Hammer, in L.A., is sparking dating rumors with Rumer Willis and Jessica Ciencin Hernandez.

Still, the exes seem to have fond feelings for each other. Chambers wished Hammer a happy birthday on Instagram in August. "Happy 34th birthday," Chambers captioned a family photo in her Instagram stories. "You are loved."

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