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

The former actress was once a popular TV star thanks to her long-running role as forensic scientist Abby Sciuto on the CBS series NCISexplained her decision to step away from the spotlight in a new interview with Hello! “I’m not ungrateful for the benefits it’s brought me, but I’m a different person now and I want to be there for it all – the good, the bad and the painful,” she said. “I want to be myself all the time, and it takes a lot of courage to tell myself that, but it’s authentic to how I feel.”

Perrette was cast NCIS in 2003 after working as an actor for almost a decade on projects like The Drew Carey Show, Veronica’s Closet, Jesse, Almost Famous And time of your life. Her NCIS She starred in “Run” for an impressive 15 seasons with 352 episodes from 2003 to 2018. Around the time of her departure, Perrette filed assault or felony charges. She later took aim at co-star Mark Harmon by saying she felt unsafe around him.

CBS TV Studios responded at the time: “Pauley Perrette had a great run NCIS and we will all miss them. Over a year ago, Pauley came to us with a workplace issue. We took the matter seriously and worked with her to find a solution. We are committed to providing a safe work environment at all of our shows.”

An oral history published last September by The Hollywood Reporter shed more light on what really happened. “In the case of Pauley Perrette, there was an incident involving the show with a dog. The dog belonged to Harmon and apparently the dog bit someone,” executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson revealed. “Pauley was a huge SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) animal person. And then the dog kept coming with Harmon and she felt like he wasn’t safe for the show. At the end of the year she just felt like it wasn’t working for her anymore and it was time to move on.”

Perrette starred in the short-lived TV series Brokewhich lasted 13 episodes and ended in 2020. She subsequently announced that she would be retiring from acting. Perrette remains committed to causes close to her heart and is credited as an executive producer of the documentary Studio One forever, about the legendary gay nightclub in LA.

As it turns out, it’s no coincidence that her latest film is a documentary. “At this point in my life I feel a deep need to find authenticity in everything and being an actor, especially at certain points in my life, has been a great escape; It’s like a drug because I didn’t have to be myself, I could be someone else,” she told the publication. “My character didn’t have all the problems that I had. That’s why I only watch documentaries, I want the truth. For me, returning to acting would mean a loss of this life full of real authenticity that I live 100 percent.”