The shocking story of how Hollywood A-Lister Jon Hamm violently hazed a young fraternity pledge has resurfaced amid calls for him to be canceled.
The revered Mad Men star is currently riding high following an SNL appearance and a new hit show on Apple TV.
But amid the adulation, shocking allegations of abuse from his time as a rowdy frat boy have reappeared.
The Golden Globe winner was one of seven Sigma Nu brothers who tormented a young pledge at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mark Sanders was hit so hard during the warped 1990 initiation that he suffered a fractured spine and nearly lost a kidney.
Hamm didn’t comment on the story when it emerged in 2015. In 2018, he summarized it as a ‘bummer of a thing that happened’ and insisting Sanders’ claims are not all accurate, but he has not commented since.
In the debut episode of her new podcast The Nerve, Daily Mail columnist Maureen Callahan revisited the story – and called for Hamm to finally face public criticism.
She also took aim at Hamm’s ‘limited acting range’, and the Hollywood sycophants who she claims are too enamored by his good looks to ever pull him up over his past behavior.
Jon Hamm, pictured in the back row, was identified as a ringleader and arrested in 1993 but an assault charge was dismissed after the hazing incident
Hamm was accused of carrying out horrific abuse against a Sigma Nu pledge while a frat boy at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1990s
Callahan detailed the horrific abuse Hamm and others allegedly inflicted on Sanders, including a brutal beating when the pledge forgot to address the actor by his nickname, ‘MC Hammer’.
‘He marches these two little pledges upstairs, where they meet two other frat boys with a paddle,’ Callahan states.
‘This isn’t like a ping pong paddle. This is what the victim describes as a two-handed wooden paddle that was at least a foot long. So that’s solid wood. They begin to beat Mark Sanders. He says, ‘very hard, rearing back.’
‘These aren’t love taps… He’s on his right side, he’s on his left side.
‘Then, at a given point, Jon Hamm, according to this transcript, takes the paddle and the victim describes Jon Hamm rearing back, and ‘he hits me right over my right kidney. I mean, square over it. Good, solid hit. And that stood me up’.’
The alleged ordeal did not end there.
Sanders described how his underwear was aggressively wrenched from inside his trousers as part of ‘sawing’.
‘This is what he said: “The more they pulled, the way they were pulling was… one would be pulling up.
‘They were pulling like it was sawing and it was hurting… it hurt.’
‘He doesn’t even know how long they continue doing that,’ Callahan said, referring to court documents.
Hamm was described as an ‘officer of the fraternity’ and said Sanders recalls him being with him all night, including when Sanders was forced into a dirty confined space called “the pit”.
Once in ‘the pit’, Sanders said he was forced to do push ups.
Freshman Mark Sanders was hit so hard during the warped 1990 initiation that he suffered a fractured spine and nearly lost a kidney
Sanders (pictured in 2015) subsequently withdrew from the university and sought counselling to cope with the shameful episode which resulted in a police inquiry and the fraternity chapter being disbanded.
Hamm left the school and pursued a career in acting. He is shown, center, wearing a puffer jacket and baseball hat
‘His kidney is so damaged that he can barely breathe now he’s got to do push ups,’ Callahan raged.
She then described how Hamm allegedly took out a lighter and torched the belt loop of the pledge’s jeans.
They caught fire as a result.
Sanders, in his complaint at the time, described trying to put the fire out with his bare hands.
‘He knocked my hand away,’ he said. ‘I was kind of panicking… because I was wearing a cotton t-shirt.
‘I tried to put it out with my hands… Jon Hamm wouldn’t let me. He made me blow it out with my mouth,’ Sanders claimed.
Hamm is then accused of taking out a claw hammer, ‘hooking it under Mark Sanders’ genitals, and dragging him around the room by his privates for about a solid minute’.
Sanders withdrew from the university and sought counselling to cope with the shameful episode.
It resulted in a police inquiry and the fraternity chapter being disbanded.
Hamm, a sophomore, was identified as a ringleader and arrested in 1993, long before he became one of America’s most recognizable actors playing boozy advertising exec Don Draper.
Hamm has been riding high lately thanks to an SNL appearance and a hit AppleTV show
An assault charge was dismissed, however, and he completed a period of probation instead of receiving a conviction for hazing.
Callahan, in her podcast, took aim not just at Hamm – but also at his famous friends.
‘The new Interview magazine, he’s interviewed by his good friend Tina Fey in which they just tongue bathe each other. And I always wondered about people like her like Kristen Wiig you know who sort of like helped John Ham enter that SNL little clique, that comedy world.
‘My theory about them is that they were never the homecoming queens. They were the comedy nerd girls who kind of didn’t fit in.
‘And a guy like Jon Ham comes along and pays them some attention and their knees buckle. They can’t believe it. They can’t believe a guy this hot would look twice at them. And so they’re doing dirty work for him… in my opinion.’
Callahan also took aim at Hamm for his love life.
She said he ditched long term girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt once he found fame.
Callahan also accused Hamm of ditching his long term girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt once he found fame
Hamm has since married Anna Osceola, who he met while filming Mad Men
‘He gets with a minor actress on Mad Men, practically an extra. So someone whose talent level is never going to eclipse his,’ Callahan said of Hamm’s now-wife Anna Osceola.
‘She’s half his age. He marries her, and he starts giving interviews about how he thinks he wants children now, which I’m sure Jennifer Westfeldt is so happy she sacrificed so much of her own dreams and life ambitions for that piece of s**t.’
Hamm previously addressed the hazing allegations against him in a 2015 interview where he claimed Sanders’ account had been ‘sensationalized’.
‘I wouldn’t say it’s accurate. Everything about that is sensationalized. I was accused of these things I don’t…
‘It’s so hard to get into, I don’t want to give it any more breath. It was a bummer of a thing that happened.’
Daily Mail has contacted Hamm’s representatives.
