With great fame comes a great amount of digging up of your past. A violent fraternity hazing from 25 years ago has come back to haunt Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm. According to The Hollywood Reporter, in 1990 Hamm was a member of the Sigma Nu chapter at the University of Texas, and participated in the physical abuse of Mark Allen Sanders, who was pledging to join the fraternity. Sanders was severely beaten and required medical attention, and ended up leaving the university. Hamm and others were charged with hazing and received probation, but the separate charge of assault was dismissed. The fraternity was disbanded shortly after.
In a 1991 lawsuit Sanders alleged that Hamm was one of the main abusers, taking part in the hazing almost until the end. Sanders said that Hamm was “mad, I mean really mad” when the pledge could not recite information he was supposed to have memorized. Hamm allegedly shoved him to the ground, set his jeans on fire, and punched him hard in the kidneys. “He rears back and hits me left-handed, and he hit me right over my right kidney, I mean square over it. Good solid hit and that, that stood me right up.” Mad Men is about to finish, and Hamm is about to find out if there is life after the show. Just recently he finished a 30-day stint in rehab for alcohol abuse.
