Alexandra Billings says she still has love for Jeffrey Tambor despite his alleged behavior on the set of Transparent.
Billings, 59, expressed mixed emotions about her former costar, 77, in an interview with Page Six, which was published Thursday. Billings also called Tambor’s alleged on-set misconduct “abominable.”
“The horrifying thing is — and horrifying because it’s so painful — is that I still love him very much,” she explained to the outlet. “I don’t love his behavior, but that’s true of a lot of people.”
Billings also told Page Six that she thinks Tambor “still hasn’t totally admitted to everything that he’s done,” and isn’t sure he ever will.
“But that’s up to him,” she continued. “That’s between him and his god, not me.”
In her new memoir, This Time for Me, Billings discusses her time portraying her character Davina on Transparent, and reveals that she nearly quit the show shortly before Tambor was fired, according to Page Six.
Tambor was fired from Transparent in February 2018, more than three months after Amazon opened an investigation into sexual harassment claims made against the actor by his former assistant, Van Barnes, and Transparent guest star Trace Lysette.
At the time, Tambor denied the claims. Nearly three months later, he did admit to being “difficult” and “mean” at times on set in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“I drove myself and my castmates crazy. Lines got blurred,” he told THR before listing off a number of women he had previously “yelled at,” including series creator Jill Soloway and executive producer Bridget Bedard.
Tambor said Soloway previously told him that “she was afraid of me.”
Also in the THR interview, he recalled being mean to former assistant Barnes and some of Transparent‘s assistant directors. “I was moody,” he said. “Sometimes I didn’t talk at all.”
Transparent concluded in 2019 with a musical episode titled Transparent: Musicale Finale following Tambor’s departure from the series.
