The 37-year-old actor faced accusations of sexual misconduct including rape in 2021 - while no charges were filed following a two-year investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department - as well as claims of cannibalistic fantasies.
Hammer denies all allegations and insists facing "a career death" saved his life, as he acknowledged his "s***** behaviour" including cheating on his wife and using "people to make me feel better".
"My life would have kept going exactly as it was. And I know that that would ultimately only lead in one place, and that's death," he told Bill Maher on the Club Random podcast.
"I experienced an ego death, a career death, a financial death, all of these things, right?
"You got to die. And once you die, you can then be reborn."
The Call Me By Your Name actor insisted being cancelled has been "incredible liberating" because he was no longer "preoccupied with how (he) was perceived".
"Once everyone just decides that they hate you, you go, 'Oh, well, then I don't need anything from you people anyway. I guess I should just learn to be content with myself'," he said.
"And then you go do that, and it feels f****** amazing."
Hammer admitted he was "callous and inconsiderate" towards other people - including being unfaithful to his now ex-wife Elizabeth Chambers, who he split from in 2020 after over eight years of marriage - but he has repeatedly denied the allegations against him.
"I used people to make me feel better. I was callous and inconsiderate with people and their emotions and their well-being," he said.
"And I wanted what I wanted, and I was going to take it at any cost, even if it was at an emotional cost of someone else. And that is s***** behaviour."
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