Pauley Perrette will not be returning to “NCIS.”
Michael Weatherly told People.com’s broadband interviewer: “I know that Pauley Perrette will be back in some capacity.” Weatherly’s quote is not floating around as a story from Meredith.com, the publishing company that owns People (it used to be called Time Life).
I contacted Pauley when I saw this headline. She left at the end of last season after 15 years, and it wasn’t happy. So I was surprised by Weatherly’s comment. So was she. Perrette sent me a succinct message: “I’m not going back.”
No, she’s not. It’s unclear what Weatherly was thinking about when he said it, maybe he was just being hopeful. Perrette deserves her own show somewhere, at this point. She left “NCIS” on her own terms because, whether it was a pet or a person, something was making her unhappy.