Jessica Walter Addresses Jeffrey Tambor’s Verbal Abuse On ‘Arrested Development’ Set; Jason Bateman Apologizes For His Comments

The fifth season of Arrested Development premieres on Netflix on May 29. It had been arriving under some controversy, due to the presence of returning cast member Jeffrey Tambor, who was recently ousted from the Amazon show Transparent over alleged abuse allegations. Now even more controversy has reared its head, in light of Tambor’s behavior on the Arrested set.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter from a few weeks ago, Tambor admitted to being “mean” and “difficult” while filming Transparent and yelling at the show’s creator, Jill Soloway, and executive producer Bridget Bedard, though he continued to deny sexually harassing his accusers. In that same interview, he also mentioned a “blowup” with his onscreen wife Jessica Walter on the Arrested Development set for which he later “profusely apologized.”

Now, that latter incident has been further addressed in a New York Times conversation with Tambor, Walter and several other members of the Arrested cast. The discussion covered topics like fan interactions and real-life parallels between the Bluth and Trump families, with plenty of time devoted to the “elephant in the room” of Tambor’s behavior.

Jason Bateman (who plays Michael Bluth) explained, “Not to belittle it or excuse it or anything, but in the entertainment industry it is incredibly common to have people who are, in quotes, ‘difficult.’ ”

Check out Tambor’s uInterview:

This prompted Walter, while getting choked up, to respond, “I have to let go of being angry at him. He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologize. I have to let it go.” Turning to Tambor, she then offered, “And I have to give you a chance to, you know, for us to be friends again.”

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But to Bateman’s point, Walter chose to be clear: “Jason says this happens all the time. In like almost 60 years of working, I’ve never had anybody yell at me like that on a set. And it’s hard to deal with, but I’m over it now. I just let it go right here, for The New York Times.”

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Since the article was published, Bateman has faced pushback on his comments, which prompted him to post a series of apology tweets earlier today, noting, “I was so eager to let Jeffrey know that he was supported in his attempt to learn, grow and apologize that I completely underestimated the feelings of the victim, another person I deeply love – and she was sitting right there!”