No animals on set policy is a must.
It’s not uncommon for a fairly dramatic and dark procedural show to have a comedic relief character who ends up being a fan favorite. For NCIS, it was always Abby Sciuto, played by Pauley Perrette. Although she wasn’t always funny and bubbly, her style and unusual outlook on life set her apart from the other agents.
Her departure from the show came as a shocking surprise to many viewers, but the reason behind it is even more bizarre than you might have imagined.
The show’s executive producer, Charles Floyd Johnson, mentioned the actress’ exit in a recent group interview with The Hollywood Reporter, where the team behind the iconic show recalled the major events in its history and all the milestones it has reached.
“In Pauley Perrette’s case, there was an incident with the show with a dog. The dog was Harmon’s, and apparently the dog bit someone. Pauley was a huge, huge SPCA 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,” he said.
As unfortunate as it is, the crew at the time seemed more concerned about the dog’s presence on the set than the departure of the beloved character. Of course, the decision to let Abby Sciuto go wasn’t popular with the fandom, so fans were eager to get the actress back.
Perrette, on the other hand, seemed very much done with both NCIS as a whole and the idea of Abby’s comeback. She also threw a lot of shade at her former co-star Mark Harmon on social media.
“NO I AM NOT COMING BACK! EVER! (Please stop asking?) I am terrified of Harmon and him attacking me. I have nightmares about it,” she said on X.
The good thing is that there are enough NCIS episodes with Pauley Perrette to go back to and re-watch whenever you miss Abby. The actress starred in 352 episodes of the original series and made a few appearances on NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans.
And if you want to see what Pauley Perrette has been up to since then, you can stream the CBS series Broke on the CBS website or Amazon Prime Video.
