Pauley Perrette says “never again” to acting after revealing his retirement

When Pauley Perrette said she had no plans to return to acting, she meant it.

Former actress, once beloved TV star thanks to her long-running role as forensic scientist Abby Sciuto on the CBS stalwart NCISin a new interview, she further explained her decision to step away from the spotlight Hi! “I’m not ungrateful for the benefits it has given me, but I’m a different person now and I want to be here to experience it – through the good, the bad and the painful,” she said. “I want to be myself all the time and it takes me a lot of courage to say that to myself, but that’s really how I feel.”

Perrette was cast NCIS in 2003, after almost ten years of acting work on projects such as The Drew Carey Show, Veronica’s Closet, Jesse, Almost Famous AND The time of your life. Her NCIS Run found her starring in the procedural series for an impressive 15 seasons across 352 episodes spanning 2003-2018. Around the time of the trip, Perrette filed assault and criminal charges. She later took aim at Mark Harmon, saying she felt unsafe around him.

CBS TV responded at the time: “Pauley Perrette did a great job NCIS and we will all miss her. Over a year ago, Pauley came to us with a workplace problem. We took this matter seriously and worked with her to find a resolution. We are committed to a safe work environment in all of our programs.”

An oral history published last September by Hollywood reporter shed more light on what really happened. “In the case of Pauley Perrette, there was an incident with a dog during the show. The dog belonged to Harmon and apparently bit someone,” executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson revealed. “Pauley was a huge, huge SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) animal. And then the dog kept coming with Harmon and she felt it wasn’t safe for the show. At the end of that year she just felt like it wasn’t working for her anymore and it was time to move on.”

Perrette took first place in a short-lived television series He broke itwhich lasted for 13 episodes and ended in 2020. She then announced that she was retiring from acting. Perrette remains active in causes she cares about and is credited as an executive producer of the documentary Studio One forever, about an iconic gay nightclub in Los Angeles.

As it turns out, it is no coincidence that her latest film is a documentary. “At this point in my life, I have a deep need to find authenticity in everything, and being an actor, especially at certain points in my life, has been a great escape; it was like a drug because I didn’t have to be myself, I could be someone else,” she told the newspaper. “My character didn’t have all the problems that I had. That’s why I only watch documentaries, I want the truth. For me, returning to being an actor would mean taking a break from the life of true authenticity that I live 100 percent of the time.”