Pauley Perrette: What Is the ‘NCIS’ Alum’s Net Worth?

NCIS alum Pauley Perrette will not be returning to the hit drama series, but she certainly walked away with a high net worth. During her time on the show, Perrette made between $175,000 and $200,000 per episode, according to CheatSheet. The outlet also noted that Forbes previously ranked at number 10 on one of their highest-paid television actresses lists. Perrette’s total net worth is estimated to be around $22 million, which is surprisingly high, considering that major award-winning stars such as Michael Keaton and J.K. Simmons have estimated net worth’s that are considerably less than Perrette’s.

Perrette starred as Abby Sciuto on NCIS for 15 seasons, from 2003 until 2018. During that time, she became a beloved and well-regarded star, eventually creating two separate scholarships — one at Valdosta State University and one at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City — for young women who want to follow the forensic path of her popular TV character.

“Abby is not just a TV character for people,” Perrette told PEOPLE in 2018, ahead of her final NCIS episode. “These young girls have modeled their entire lives off of her. It’s like Abby has raised a couple of generations of young girls and has inspired this international phenomenon of young women going into math and science and STEM programs because she made it accessible, cool, attainable and fun.”

“It’s a scholarship that is going to make Abby live forever in the real lives of these young people that find out about this,” she added.

Perrette actually attended both schools herself, studying criminal science, sociology and psychology at Valdosta State and then going on to John Jay School of Criminal Science where she intended to get her Master’s degree until she “accidentally” fell into acting.

“It makes me so happy and it warms my heart so much that this is literally going to be an immortal legacy for these real-life people to be afforded this education and to pursue criminal science and forensics, all because of Abby,” she went on to say.

Finally, Perrette revealed that she has always been fascinated with criminal science as a kid, admitting, “I lived in Georgia at the time of the Atlanta child murders, and I was around the same age of those kids, and I lived right off the Chattahoochee River. I was very young then, but I was obsessed with that case. Then I got really obsessed with Jonestown. I was way too young to be obsessed with these things, but I would cut out every article — I really don’t like bad guys.”

Next up, Perrette will be starring in the freshman CBS sitcom Broke.