'NCIS': Mark Harmon Dog Incident That Sparked Pauley Perrette's Exit Confirmed by Director

It's been five years since Pauley Perrette departed NCIS as forensic specialist Abby Sciuto. With her spunky and lovable personality, Abby was just the right person to help the team in their time of need to crack a code or identify DNA, etc. As one of the original characters introduced during the JAG backdoor pilot, she became an instant favorite. In Season 15, a black-ops expert Abby encountered several years earlier hired a hitman to kill her. In an attempt to protect her, MI6 agent Clayton Reeves dies. After she and the team take him down, Abby resigns from NCIS to accompany Reeves' body back to England and start a charity in honor of him and his mother to help the homeless.

Perrette's exit was on controversial terms, to say the least. Reports initially claimed that the actress was in a feud with co-star Mark Harmon after his rescue dog bit a crew member in 2016. She posted a photo of the injured crew member and said that she was terrified to return to set because of Harmon. More details about the feud with Harmon and Perrette later emerged, with a source claiming there was another incident in 2017 in which Harmon "body checked" her, and Perrette felt it was "payback." During The Hollywood Reporter's new oral history in honor of the show's 20th anniversary, JAG and NCIS executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson confirmed what really happened when it came to Perrette's departure.

"In Pauley Perrette's case, there was an incident with the show with a dog," Johnson shared. "The dog was Harmon's, and apparently, the dog bit someone. Pauley 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, she just felt like it wasn't working for her anymore, and it was time to move on."

It's sad hearing more of the story from another person about what made Perrette leave, but it seems like it was the best choice for her. Maybe fans can still hope to see Abby in the future. While Perrette has since stressed that she isn't coming back to NCIS, it's possible that her sentiment has changed now that Mark Harmon is no longer on the show. As much as fans would love to see Abby return, there's no indication that she's even thinking about a possible comeback. Luckily, there are 15 seasons worth of Abby content that can be streamed on Paramount+.