‘NCIS’ Alum Pauley Perrette Reveals Why She Did Not Report Sexual Assault Incident

Former NCIS star Pauley Perrette is coming forward with her story of sexual assault and why she refused to report the incident when it happened.

Perrette opened up about her alleged sexual assault at the age of 15, tying it into the ongoing “#WhyIDidntReport” movement. The trending Twitter hashtag aims to help others understand why it takes some sexual assault survivors years to come forward with their stories.

Perrette confessed that the reason she did not even tell her family about the incident was fear of her father seeking revenge on her classmate.

“So #WhyIDidntReport, I was 15. Raped by a drunk football player at a high school party,” Perrette wrote. “I was SURE my dad would shoot him if he knew and then my mom would be alone. I stayed in my room for days and cried to my cat. Didn’t tell dad until like 20 years later after my rapist died.”

Perrette then went into what happened when she told her father two decades after the fact. The now-49-year-old actress says her suspicions were correct: Her father would have killed the young man in question.

“My Dad confirmed decades later, that I was right, he would have shot my rapist that night, if he had known,” Perrette wrote. “In a weird way, I saved my parent’s life. But my writing and speaking about it later saved mine.”

She also pointed her followers to a 2004 book entitled Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache: Adventures in the First Person. The book collected first person essays from various notable personalities, including one from Perrette. This is where she first spoke about here sexual assault incident.

She shared the first page of the essay, which touches on how she was naive about sex and alcohol in her teenage years due to her religious upbringing. She also alludes to a boy, her best friend, from an Italian family. She also sets up the fact that she “accidentally” learned about sex “in one of the most brutal ways.”

Photo Credit: CBS