The plush suburban rehab where Jon Hamm recovered from booze and hazing shame

Daily Mail​

25-04-2025

Jon Hamm completed a rehab program for alcoholism that costs up to $100,000 just weeks before his college hazing scandal was first exposed.
The Hollywood actor spent 30 days at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut, in February and March 2015.
His rehab stay was part of a turbulent year after his career-making Mad Men role of ad-man Don Draper ended, and he struggled to 'recalibrate' himself.
Hamm also broke up with his long-term girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt that year, and the hazing scandal began in April 2015 when old police files were unearthed.
The future star was one of seven Sigma Nu brothers who bullied and tortured 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.
He said a gang of bullies that included Hamm dragged him around with a claw hammer hooked onto his genitals.
The actor's charges were later dropped after he completed probation in a deal with prosecutors.
Hamm emerged from Silver Hill in late March and had eyes swollen like a bee sting when he was photographed near his home in Los Angeles in following days.
The facility offers a Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Substance Use program that costs about $104,000, though it is not known exactly what Hamm did there.
His entry into the facility was very well-timed as it prepared him for a firestorm of outrage over his disgraceful college behavior.
Silver Hill's website advised prospective patients that its services are usually covered by insurance, so the actual prices would be far lower.
'Addiction is a complex disease with both emotional and physical components. It requires skilled and sensitive treatment to repair deep impacts to the many aspects of your life,' it read.
'We focus all the strengths of Silver Hill on building your individual course of treatment. We do it by deeply understanding who you are and what you are struggling with. Everyone is unique.
'DBT is designed to build skills and strategies for managing intense emotions, navigating interpersonal relationships, and making positive behavioral changes to lead emotionally healthy lives.'
The program includes extensive group and individual therapy, as well as 'a range of additional therapies and activities'.
The hospital is set among lush woods in a tranquil suburban area of the small New England town to provide a relaxing healing experience.
Hamm opened up about his rehab experience several times in the years the followed, most recently in a New York Times profile this week.
'It's like anything else, there's no way over but through, right?' he said of his post-Mad Men struggles generally.
'You can avoid it, or you can not deal with it, but it doesn't make it go away. You have to kind of go through the steps.'
Hamm directly addressed the rehab stint in a Mr Porter interview in 2016.
'It has all these connotations, but it's just an extended period of talking about yourself,' he said.
'People go for all sorts of reasons, not all of which are chemically related. But there's something to be said for pulling yourself out of the grind for a period of time and concentrating on recalibrating the system. And it works. It's great.'
Hamm has said in several interviews that many of his issues date back to watching both his parents die from illness - his mother when he was 10 and father when he was 20.
'After I'd lost my dad, I had this horrible paralyzing inertia and no one in my family was capable of dealing with it,' he said.
'So what do you do? Go and see a professional. I preach it from the mountaintops. I know it's a luxury and it's not something everyone can afford. But if you can, do it. It's like a mental gym.'
The program includes extensive group and individual therapy, as well as 'a range of additional therapies and activities'
He told GQ in September 2015 that his father's death sent him into spiraling depression that made it hard to get out of bed.
'I started drinking; it was a rough time,' he said.
Despite his struggles with alcohol and rehab stint, he told the NYT this week that he still drinks, though much less than before.
'I've never claimed to be a sober person,' he said.
Though, even at his worst, he played down similarities between himself and Draper - famously morose and often seen with a whisky in hand.
'I don't drink as much as Don Draper,' he told The Mail on Sunday in 2013. 'I would be unconscious if I did.'
Hamm is alleged to have 'tortured' Sanders, humiliating him beyond belief. Sanders dropped out of school as a result.
Hamm has never apologized publicly and insisted previously that Sanders' claims were 'sensationalized' and not entirely 'accurate'.
The shocking account resurfaced this week amid renewed calls for him to face public scrutiny.
When the Daily Mail contacted Hamm by phone on Wednesday, the stunned actor ordered a reporter to contact his PR rep in the hopes of brushing us off with a sanitized statement.
'I think you should call my rep, who are you? This is inappropriate, it's a very odd choice for you to call me,' he snapped.
'They are claims that have been around for years. No, I don't want to respond!
'I'm a little bit offended that you called my personal line, that's why we have representatives,' he said. Hamm was later spotted looking pensive while walking his dog in New York City.
Sanders previously gave an agonizing interview to prosecutors about how he was beaten with a paddle, dragged around a room by his genitals and had his pants set on fire during the hazing ordeal.
He was left with a fractured spine and nearly lost a kidney due to the damage he suffered.
Hamm only discussed the scandal at any length with Esquire magazine in a 2018 interview, and was angry when asked about it.
'I wouldn't say it's accurate,' he began. 'Everything about that is sensationalized. I was accused of these things I don't... It's so hard to get into it.
'I don't want to give it any more breath. It was a bummer of a thing that happened. I was essentially acquitted.
'I wasn't convicted of anything. I was caught up in a big situation, a stupid kid in a stupid situation, and it's a f**king bummer. I moved on from it.'
Hamm has never expressed any public remorse for his behavior or indicated that he feels bad for the man whose life he helped ruin.
The scandal was then largely forgotten, with Hamm going on to land plum parts in prestige movies and TV shows including Top Gun: Maverick and The Morning Show.