Why NCIS alum Pauley Perrette isn’t coming back for season 17

Pauley Perrette

Just in case anyone wondered whether or not Pauley Perrette could return to NCIS alongside her former co-star Cote de Pablo, don’t count on it. After all, the actress behind Abby has made her stance very clear.

In a new post on Twitter, Perrette confirmed that she is “not coming back” ever, and made it clear that she was “terrified” of her one-time colleague Mark Harmon and him “attacking” her. There were allegations before Pauley’s exit all about an on-set feud between the two actors; they did not appear together for much of Perrette’s final season as Abby, including the final scene. There were allegations about Harmon’s dog getting violent with a crew member, and the relationship seemed to sour from the time of the incident onward. (Perrette also posted a photo of what allegedly happened to said crew member after the incident; visit her Twitter account if you wish to see that, as it’s a little bit graphic to share here.)

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So why is all of this coming up right now? A lot of that probably has to do with the simple fact that over the past few weeks, Pauley has likely been inundated with a lot of questions as to whether or not she could return to NCIS as her famous character. We get it to a certain degree, given mostly that viewers often are going to be nostalgic for what they feel is the golden era of the show — for many, that’s the era where Ziva, Tony, and Abby were all a part of the show to some capacity. Bringing back Cote de Pablo was an enormous move for this show, mostly because this was at one point deemed almost impossible to happen. Yet, the writers figured out a cool angle to make it so.

Yet, lightning is not striking twice here. While Pauley had a great run, clearly the circumstances behind her departure are such that it doesn’t make a return for her to NCIS even remotely tenable. It may be the best thing for everyone at this point that they just get to move on; we know that Abby has been barely mentioned on the series since her exit, but Pauley seems to be moving on just fine with a new show entitled Broke (watch the new trailer for it over at the link here) that seems to be funny and a nice change of pace for her.

As for whether or not we think people are going to stop asking Perrette, she unfortunately probably just needs to be prepared for more of this. While we think some people will listen to her here, she’s always going to be known to some people as Abby and because of that, it’s probably going to be a question that she’s asked often when people encounter her on the street.

If you love NCIS, just enjoy it for the show that it is now — meanwhile, you can also love Pauley’s new show and appreciate her work over there, if you choose. Sometimes, paths just aren’t meant to cross again.

For more news about NCIS and the future…

Be sure to visit the link here. Meanwhile, let us know in the comments what you think about what Pauley had to say on social media. (Photo: CBS.)

This article was written by Jessica Carter and you can follow her on Twitter here.

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