David Cross apologized to Jessica Walter after his wife spoke to him, of course
May 25, 2018
On Wednesday, the New York Times published an interview with the cast of Arrested Development. It did not go well. Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman, Tony Hale, David Cross, Will Arnett, Jessica Walter and Alia Shawkat were all there, and it turned into an exercise in mansplaining harassment to a female victim of harassment. Jessica Walter wept as she tried to describe how no one in her lengthy, decades-long career had ever verbally harassed her like Jeffrey Tambor. As she wept, Jason Bateman, David Cross and Tony Hale all did the most to minimize and negate her experience and her feelings and defend Tambor. It was awful.
People were really angry at the men of AD. Jason Bateman got the brunt of the anger, for good reason – because he was the main one doing the mansplaining. He ended up making a f–ked up apology to Jessica on Twitter yesterday. He’s still canceled for me, whatever. Tony Hale also had something to say:
Which, frankly, is a better apology than the one Bateman offered up, even though Hale’s was shorter. Bateman’s apology was PR, it was “no really, you didn’t really read what you read, believe me, I’m still a nice guy!” So what of David Cross, the creep who was racist to Charlyne Yi, the same guy who married Amber Tamblyn and uses her as some kind of shield from criticism (I can’t be a sexist, racist douchebag because my wife is so woke!). The same guy who was sitting there, caping for Jeffrey Tambor as Jessica Walter wept? Well, of course he has thoughts.
The Gothamist interview he links to – you can read it here – was conducted on Thursday, in the wake of everyone canceling the sh-t out of all the men of AD. Cross goes on at length, but here’s one part, where he’s basically asked what it felt like to sit there and gaslight a victim of harassment in the middle of an interview:
“I totally get that. I don’t know how it comes out in print, and I know that there’s the audio going around, so that is what it is. There’s no qualifying that. I’ll say this: two people that I deeply respect, and I listen to and I love and appreciate, expressed to me after that interview their discomfort with it. One of those was Alia and the other was my wife. I listened to them, and I can’t and wouldn’t ever dismiss their take on something. And they are also two people who are aware of the bigger picture. So, it means even more than it normally would, which is a lot.
So I will unequivocally apologize to Jessica. I’m sorry that we behaved the way we behaved. Whatever the criticisms are, I will own up. I don’t even know what they are, as I said, I saw the initial thing but I jumped off at the behest of various people. And also I had to put my daughter to bed, so it was time to, you know, focus on what’s really important in the moment.
I don’t know outside of what I can speculate, just being on Twitter now for over a year and a half, and [knowing] what the situation is, I assume it’s a lot like—well it’s like what you said, you encapsulated it. I agreed with Alia that there was no excuse. There’s never an excuse ever for yelling at somebody and humiliating them in front of other people. And there was no excuse when Jessica did it. To Jessica’s credit, she eventually apologized to the actress, and felt bad about it. Jeffrey did as well, but it was a bigger deal, there were more people in the room and it was an extremely uncomfortable moment.
He had to be told by two women he respected – Alia and his wife – that what he did was wrong. He couldn’t figure it out on his own. He couldn’t sit there and watch Jessica weep and think “maybe I should defend her and not the guy who screamed at her.” He was incapable of understanding that without being scolded by his wife and younger costar. And then he mentions that Jessica yelled at someone too, and how come no one is making a big deal about that? When questioned about it he explained that Jessica basically took a minor issue with a stand-in and that it was really no big deal, nothing like what Tambor had done to Jessica, so why even bring it up? Because he just can’t help himself.
Incidentally, his woke wife Amber Tamblyn was on Twitter too after the NYT piece dropped. She tweeted: “I spoke to Alia at length. I corresponded with Jessica. Just because I’m publicly silent on sh-t doesn’t mean I’m not privately handling sh-t. Now that you’re updated on what I do behind the scenes, Twitter, keep my f–king name out of your @. Feel me? Have a great Memorial Day.” Oh, dear. For one, it’s not Amber’s responsibility to do damage control for her husband. Secondly, does she truly understand that her douchebag husband is using her as a shield? Three, Amber is considered one of the “founding members” of Time’s Up but now she suddenly wants to handle sh-t privately when it’s about her husband?
Here’s the audio clip of Walter sobbing during the NYT interview:
Photos courtesy of WENN.
