Pauley Perrette Opens Up About Saying Goodbye To 'NCIS'

After 15 incredible seasons, Pauley Perrette is saying goodbye to NCIS, and she admits it has been anything but easy.

In a new interview, the actress who has played forensic scientist Abby Sciuto for 15 seasons of the iconic series, opened up about how she tried to tell her castmates she was leaving. “I just made a very feeble attempt to try and tell them without crying and I made it for about 10 seconds,” Perrette told ET. “‘I just want you guys to know,’ and that was it. I’m like, [crying], ‘I love you, guys,’ then I have to get right back to work and do a three-page monologue about science.”

As for fans having to say goodbye, she knows it isn’t easy, and has the same response that they do. “I say, ‘I love her as much as you do,’ which is true,” the 49-year-old actress said of her response to all the fan love. “And I say, ‘thank you,’ and I say, ‘I love you, guys,’ because I do. I love the Abby fans, there is nobody like them.”

Now, she jokes, “I have been in either pajamas or a bathing suit for almost a month,” and doesn’t have an exact career move in place just yet. “As far as what’s next, it is totally God’s plan for me, and that’s what I believe and that’s how I feel,” she explained. “So I’m just waiting. It’ll be revealed to me. I’ll know when it happens.”

As for why Perrette chose to leave the show after a decade and a half, she said in a separate interview, “I believe in God and the universe so firmly, and it just suddenly became blindingly apparent that now was the time. After a lot of thought, I decided to announce it myself on Twitter because I didn’t want it to be turned into anything “shocking.” Abby leaving is more than a cheap TV ploy.”

“I actually can’t say,” she said of what exactly happens in the emotional goodbye. “Not because I’m not allowed to, but because there are so many different feelings. It’s a cornucopia of emotions. And there is a character from her past who comes back and becomes pivotal to the plotline,” she said. “There are tears, there are laughs, there are more tears and there’s a lot of love. It’s packed. As an actor and as Abby, I felt a lot. Even right now, I’m running the gamut of emotions.”

Pauley Perrette Opens Up About Saying Goodbye To ‘NCIS’