Jeffrey Tambor’s Transparent Firing

Several months after Jeffrey Tambor got ousted from Amazon‘s Transparent, he broke his silence.

Tambor sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss his side of the story after being accused of sexually harassing Transparent actress Trace Lysette and former personal assistant Van Barnes.

• “This is the first time I’ve talked about this, ever,” Tambor, 73, said. “And possibly the last time.”
• Tambor admits he was blindsided by his ouster, which he learned of via text message on February 15^thfrom the show’s exec producer Jill Soloway. (His character Maura Pfefferman was created by Soloway and based on her own father’s transition.)
• Tambor said that when the accusations first surfaced, he anticipated getting chastised for his failure to control his temper on-set, but that getting fired had never entered his mind.
• “I don’t remember the whole conversation,” he said. “But I do remember her last words were, ‘Do you need help with a statement?’ “
• Tambor also stood by his original account that while he did not always use the best judgment, he never sexually harassed anyone.
• Tambor said: “I dispute her account. I did raise my voice at times, I was moody at times, there were times when I was tactless. But as for the other stuff, absolutely not.”
• He also acknowledges misbehaving on-set. “Lines got blurred. I was difficult. I was mean,” he said.
• “I was scared because I was a cisgender male playing Maura Pfefferman,” Tambor continued. “And my whole thing was, ‘Am I doing it right? Am I doing it right? Am I doing it right?’ To the point that I worried myself to death.”
• The profile itself has come under fire on Twitter. Writer Roxane Gay summed up the criticism, writing: “Here is how to not write about someone accused of sexual harassment. Truly a master class in what not to do.”
• Tambor can next be seen in the fifth season of Arrested Development, which confirmed hiring him and standing by him, despite the allegations of harassment over the weekend.