Pauley Perrette explained her decision to leave and never return to acting after her departure from ‘NCIS’ a few years ago in a recent interview with Hello! magazine.
“I’m not ungrateful for the benefits that it gave to me, but I’m a different person now, and I want to be here for it—the good and the bad and the painful,” she shared. “I want to be me all the time, and it takes a good amount of courage for me to say that to myself but it’s authentically how I feel.”
Perrette appeared on ‘NCIS’ from its debut in 2003 to 2018, when she made assault accusations involving her co-star Mark Harmon. The actress ruled out her possible comeback by saying she no longer felt safe working around Harmon.
CBS TV Studios responded to the claims, saying, “Pauley Perrette had a terrific run on ‘NCIS’ and we are all going to miss her. Over a year ago, Pauley came to us with a workplace concern. We took the matter seriously and worked with her to find a resolution. We are committed to a safe work environment on all our shows.”
The Hollywood Reporter later revealed more about the situation through an interview with executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson. “There was an incident on the show with the dog,” Johnson revealed last September.
“The dog was Harmon’s, and apparently the dog bit someone,” he continued. “Pauley was a huge, huge SPCA [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] animal person. And then the dog kept coming with Harmon, and she felt it wasn’t safe for the show. By the end of that year, she just felt like it wasn’t working for her anymore, and it was time to move on.”
Perrette ended her run on ‘NCIS’ after 15 seasons and led another CBS show, ‘Broke,’ two years later. While she hasn’t appeared on screen since then and apparently will not do so in the near future, the show will return for its Season 22 on October 14.
