Dakota Johnson makes Armie Hammer cannibalism joke during Sundance Film Festival speech

Dakota Johnson made a joke about the cannibalism allegations against Armie Hammer as she honoured director Luca Guadagnino at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday.

The Fifty Shades of Grey star appeared at the Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance dinner on Thursday to present her Suspiria and A Bigger Splash director with the Sundance Institute International Icon Award.

During her speech, Johnson jokingly noted that she wasn't in his 2017 smash hit movie Call Me by Your Name, which starred Hammer and Timothée Chalamet and features a sexual act involving a peach.

"Sadly, I wasn't in that one. It was unfortunate, Luca had asked me to play the role of the peach, but our schedules conflicted," she said. "Thank God, though, because I would've been another woman that Armie Hammer had tried to eat."

Amid laughter from the crowd, she continued by referencing Guadagnino's recent movie Bones and All: "It's been five years since (Call Me by Your Name) premiered here, and Luca hasn't stopped taking us to exciting places. Who knew cannibalism was so popular?"

Hammer was accused of sexual assault, abusive behaviour and cannibalistic fetishes in January 2021 and has been out of the limelight ever since. He has denied all of the allegations, with his lawyer insisting that all of his interactions with his partners "have been completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory".

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival began on Thursday in Park City, Utah and runs until 29 January.