Pauley Perrette Says “Never Again” on Acting After Retirement: “I'm a Different Person Now”

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

Former actress, thanks to her long-running role as forensic scientist Abby Sciuto on the CBS stalwart, the one-time TV star NCISIn a new interview with , he further explained his decision to step away from the limelight Hello! “I'm not ungrateful for the benefits it's given me but I'm a different person now and I want to be here for it – the good and the bad and the painful,” he said. “I want to be me all the time, and it takes a lot of courage for me to say that to myself, but that's really how I feel.”

Perrett has been cast NCIS In 2003 after working as an actor for almost a decade in such projects The Drew Carey Show, Veronica's Closet, Jessie, Almost Famous And time of your life. his NCIS The run saw him regularly star in an impressive 15 seasons spanning 352 episodes from 2003-18. At the time of his departure, Perrett filed an assault or battery charge. She later targeted co-star Mark Harmon, saying she felt unsafe around him.

CBS TV Studios responded at the time: “Pauly Perrette had a great run NCIS And we are all going to miss him. A year ago, Pauly came to us with workplace concerns. We took the matter seriously and worked with him to find a solution. We are committed to a safe working environment at all our shows.

An oral history published last September The Hollywood Reporter shed more light on what actually happened. “In the case of Pauly Perret, there was an incident at the show with a dog. The dog belonged to Harmon, and apparently the dog bit someone,” executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson revealed. “Paoli 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, he felt it wasn't working for him anymore, and it was time to move on.”

Perrette went on to star in the short-lived TV series brokewhich lasted for 13 episodes and ended in 2020 He then announced that he would retire from acting Perrett remains active in causes he cares about and is credited as an executive producer on the documentary Studio One Forever, About the iconic gay LA nightclub.

It turns out, it's not an accident that his latest credit is a documentary. “At this point in my life I have a deep need to find the truth of everything, and being an actor, especially at certain points in my life, was a great escape; It's like a drug because I don't have to be me, I can be someone else,” he told the publication. “My character didn't have all the problems I had. So I just watch documentaries, I want the truth. For me, being an actor Going back would take away from this life the true authenticity that I live 100 percent of the time.