NCIS vet Pauley Perrette's latest update explains why she hasn't returned to acting (and won't)

NCIS is set to return with its twenty second season on Monday, Oct. 14 and the franchise is gearing up to launch the prequel series NCIS: Origins as well. It's always this time of the year that fans begin to wonder whether or not they may see some familiar faces pop-up. Right now, that pondering is focused on cast members from NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: Hawaii since both series have ended. But it also extends to past actors from the flagship, too.

One such alum is Pauley Perrette who played Abby Sciuto for 15 seasons. Fans loved the happy, goth forensic psychiatrist. And, casual viewers unaware of why she exited the series tend to ask what happened to her and whether she'll ever make a cameo appearance but the answer is no.

Perrette decided to leave NCIS nearly a year after a tense dispute with Mark Harmon over his dog which had bit a crew member who reportedly required 15 stitches after the incident. In a tweet from May 2018, she referred to bullying she alleged happened on set and multiple physical assaults.

In 2019, via tweet, Perrette cited a fear of Harmon and the possibility of him attacking her as the reason why she would never return to the show. Harmon has never spoken publicly about the incident or her tweets and allegations.

At the time, she hadn't stepped away from acting entirely and was teasing a new series she'd be starring in. The sitcom was the short-lived Broke. Now, four years after her last on-screen appearance, she has weighed in on whether she'll ever act again.

Speaking to Hello!, Perrette explained that she's focused on living authentically: "...for me, going back to being an actor would be taking away from this life of true authenticity that I'm living 100% of the time."

She likened acting to being a drug. One that allowed her to escape from the problems in her real life because she could be somebody else while on-screen. Now though Perrette has a "deep need to find authenticity in everything" which is why she only watches documentaries and executive produces them as well. She recently produced Studio One Forever, a doc about the LA-based gay disco and Hollywood hangout that was a haven in the '70s-'80s.

While Perrette has no interest in acting anymore, she's still lending her voice to the causes she cares about and championing efforts to continue to shed light on history that's not often told.

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