Jessica Walter Says Jeffrey Tambor Verbally Harassed Her During 'Arrested Development'

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA/AP) — Actress Jessica Walter has accused embattled co-star Jeffrey Tambor of verbally harassing her on the set of the hit show "Arrested Development."

An emotional Walter made the allegations during a cast interview with the New York Times that was published Wednesday, just ahead of the upcoming release of the fifth season of "Arrested Development" next week.

"I have to let go of being angry at him," Walter said. "He never crossed the line on our show with any sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me. But I have to let it go. He did apologize. I have to let it go. I have to give you a chance to... for us to be friends again."

Walter made the comments with Tambor sitting with her in the room.

"Because, honestly, Jason (Bateman) said this happens all the time," she went on. "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 it, but I'm over it now."

Walter was referring to comments co-star Jason Bateman had made just prior, in which he attempted to defend Tambor by saying:

"This sort of b---s--- that we do, making a fake life, it's a weird thing. And it is a breeding ground for atypical behavior. And certain people have certain processes."

On Thursday morning, however, Bateman took to Twitter to apologize and qualify his statements, saying he was "deeply sorry."

"Based on listening to the NYT interview and hearing people's thoughts online, I realize that I was wrong here. I sound like I'm condoning yelling at work. I do not. It sounds like I'm excusing Jeffery. I do not. It sounds like I'm insensitive to Jessica. I am not."

All this comes after Netflix chose to keep Tambor in the new season of "Arrested Development" following allegations of sexual misconduct on Tambor's show "Transparent," which resulted in him being fired from that show earlier this year.

Tambor has denied the misconduct claims.

At the May 17 premiere of the new season in Los Angeles, the "Arrested Development" cast unanimously supported the 73-year-old actor.

Not only do I support him as a friend, but I've known him for 20 years," Arrested Development creator and executive producer Mitch Hurwitz said. "I've worked with him for 20 years and I've never seen any behavior like that described. I've never, even in private, he's never been in any way inappropriate about, we don't talk about women or objectify. It's just not who he is, and he's got a lot of things that I'd like to list, a lot of really bad qualities I'd like to list for you now, but nowhere in there, in my experience, is any kind of creep."

"We are a family and it's great to have everybody in the family here," co-star Will Arnett said.

"Love Jeffrey!" actress Portia de Rossi said, who plays Lindsay Bluthe. "I've always loved Jeffrey and we support him and adore him and, yeah, he's terrific."

For Alia Shawkat, who has known Tambor for many years and supports the women of the #MeToo movement, the situation was not cut and dry.

"Well, it's a very complicated issue, obviously," Shawkat said. "I'm very close to Jeffrey and I care about him a lot. I just don't think it has to completely be so one way or the other. It's a complicated time, but I'm hoping that as this revolution progresses that we get more involved in the specifics of things and, you know, I support him being on the show, but I also support the voices of the victims at the same time," she explained.

In February, Amazon announced that it had decided to drop Tambor from the fifth season of "Transparent" following an internal investigation.

It came after multiple allegations of inappropriate behavior against Tambor by transgender "Transparent" actress Trace Lysette, and his former assistant Van Barnes, who is also trans.

(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)