Jeffrey Tambor to leave ‘Transparent’ after second sexual harassment accusation

(JTA) — Actor Jeffrey Tambor said he will not return for the fifth season of the Emmy-winning television comedy “Transparent” following a second accusation of sexual harassment made by a female member of the show’s cast.

“Playing Maura Pfefferman on ‘Transparent’ has been one of the greatest privileges and creative experiences of my life,” Tambor first told Deadline on Sunday. “What has become clear over the past weeks, however, is that this is no longer the job I signed up for four years ago.

“I’ve already made clear my deep regret if any action of mine was ever misinterpreted by anyone as being aggressive, but the idea that I would deliberately harass anyone is simply and utterly untrue. Given the politicized atmosphere that seems to have afflicted our set, I don’t see how I can return to ‘Transparent.’”

Tambor, who is Jewish, played the transgender head of a dysfunctional Jewish family in the series.

Deadline had reported last week that the writers of “Transparent” were contemplating writing Tambor out of the fifth season of the Amazon series, which was created by Jill Soloway.

Last week, Trace Lysette, who has played the recurring character Shea on the series since its first season, wrote on Twitter that Tambor had made “sexual advances and comments” toward her and “one time it got physical.”

Tambor’s former assistant, Van Barnes, a transgender woman, made the first allegations in a private Facebook post on Nov. 8 that was not widely circulated in the media. Tambor dismissed them as “baseless” charges coming from a “disgruntled former assistant.”

The claims against Tambor, which are the subject of an internal probe launched by Amazon, are the latest in a string of complaints made against celebrities in the wake of a New York Times article last month about the alleged harassment by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was fired from the company he founded over the allegations.