An MTV star who appeared on the fifth season of Are You the One? in 2017 has claimed that she was sexually assaulted by a cast member after production “drugged” her. Gianna Hammer, now 25, was cast for the fifth season of the MTV dating show and has recently opened up about her experience, telling The Daily Beast, “They should have never left me in an unsafe position. I’m definitely a changed person after it all.”
Hammer, who appeared on the same AYTO season as Challenge star Kam Williams, also spoke about her experience in a TikTok video which she captioned, “The time I got drugged and sexually assaulted while filming a reality show.”
MTV told the outlet that they’ve paused production and casting to “conduct an independent investigation into the allegations, the third party production company and further review our internal safety protocols.” The production company Lighthearted Entertainment issued their own statement saying they would be cooperating fully but denied Hammer’s allegations:
We are confident that any review will confirm the safety [protocols] that we have long had in place on the sets of Are You The One? … throughout the eight seasons of the show, no contestant has reported an incident of sexual assault to Lighthearted.
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Hammer Said She Was Given Her Own Prescription Medication by Production Despite Telling Them She Couldn’t Take It While Drinking Alcohol
I literally have email proof from 2017 reporting my incident to an mtv rep, who then replied would relay it to mtv. Meanwhile in their statement: 🤡🤡🤡 pic.twitter.com/KDOue6YYhS
— Gianna Hammer (@giannahammer) April 19, 2021
“Four years ago while filming Are You the One? I was drugged and sexually assaulted,” Hammer stated in her TikTok video. She said before flying to Cabarete in the Dominican Republic for filming, she was prescribed Zoloft, an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication that her doctor told her never to take while drinking alcohol.
She said during filming, she was extremely drunk one night and got into an argument with another cast member. Hammer was pulled aside by production, she alleged, and “that was when the three producers said that I needed to calm down and that they were going to give me one of my medications.”
She told The Daily Beast she clearly remembers this portion of the night and that she told producers repeatedly that she wasn’t supposed to take her medication while drinking, which she said her cast members witnessed as well. She said she barely remembers the rest of the evening.
The following morning, Hammer was told by production that she’d gotten into bed with a male cast member and her other costars heard her saying “no.” Producers also told Hammer that they pulled her out of the bed but that “nothing happened.”
Hammer’s Costars Confirmed Her Story & Said They Remember the Night Very Well
One of Hammer’s costars, Hayden Weaver, who she dated for about two years after the show, told The Daily Beast that he remembers the night in question very well and was in the room with Hammer when she was given the medication from production. He said afterward he could see inside the bedroom from the window and that production was filming the events:
I remember at one point looking at the room and there was a camera pointed where Gianna was laying. I couldn’t see what exactly they were filming, I just assumed they were getting some shots of people sleeping that they can edit into stuff for the show. I came to realize later that [the male cast member] was basically starting to touch her and they were filming it as if it was like a hookup.
Another cast member, Tyranny Todd, told the outlet she was in the room and heard a drunk Hammer telling her costar to stop their advances, “She’s telling him, ‘OK, stop, haha.'” Todd said when she looked over, she saw the male cast member on top of Hammer. “I’m just like, what the f***? We went over there to try to get him off of her because we were like, ‘This is weird,'” Todd told The Daily Beast.
I remember just always being really, really mad because we knew that Gianna was taken advantage of. I can remember it clear as day, he was on top of her and to turn around, like, ‘What the f***? This is not cool.’
Weaver and Todd said cast members who witnessed the events were taken aside by production later and told to not discuss the incident or they would lose money from their stipend, the outlet reported. According to Hammer’s tweet about the incident, she isn’t looking to file a lawsuit against MTV or Lighthearted Entertainment but simply wants “acknowledgment and an apology.”
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