How NCIS stars found out about Cote de Pablo’s shocking exit ’20 minutes before everyone else’

In 2013 NCIS fans were left shocked when Cote de Pablo made the surprising announcement that she was leaving the hit TV series. 

But it turns out that the news was also a huge shock to the cast, with the likes of Michael Weatherly and Pauley Perrette only finding out 20 minutes before it was released to the media.

“It was huge news to us,” Pauley told E! News at the time. 

“I found out literally 20 minutes before it was released in the press,” she said. “But we love her. She’s our friend. She had a personal decision to make. No one wanted her to leave. There was no drama…there really isn’t much to tell. There really wasn’t any drama. But we love her, we respect her and that’s what happened.”

© Michael Buckner

Cote left the show in 2013; her character Ziva David was killed in a bomb explosion in Israel. But the actress, who appeared in seasons three to ten, made a surprise return in 2019, when it was revealed that Ziva was in fact alive and in hiding. 

After uncovering terrorist Mira Sahar Azam as the mastermind behind the attempt to murder Ziva, LeRoy Gibbs (Mark Harmon) shot her down, freeing his colleague from a life on the run. 

© CBS Photo Archive

Ziva then left for Paris to reunite with her husband, Tony DiNazzo (Michael Weatherly) and their daughter Tali. Tony left the NCIS team to take care of his daughter three years after Ziva “died” but Michael made a brief return, as Tony, in 2024 for David McCallum’s tribute episode, which aired on CBS in February.

The character made a comeback towards the end of the episode, joining Dr Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen) in the lab before heading off to Ducky’s funeral. Watch the moving moment in the video below. 

Pauley left the series in 2018  and told HELLO! that she will “never again” return to the screen. 

“I’m not ungrateful for the benefits that it gave to me,” she told HELLO! “But I’m a different person now and I want to be here for it – the good and the bad and the painful. I want to be me all the time, and it takes a good amount of courage for me to say that to myself but it’s authentically how I feel.”

© SOPA Images

In 2025, Cote and Michael will reunite on screen for an NCIS spin-off, Tony & Ziva, with 10 new episodes coming on Paramount+.

“Tony left the NCIS team to go raise their daughter. Years later, Ziva was discovered alive, leading her to complete one final mission with NCIS before she was reunited with Tony and their daughter in Paris,” reads the synopsis.

“Since then – and where we find them in the new Paramount+ original series – Tony and Ziva have been raising their daughter, Tali, together. When Tony’s security company is attacked, they must go on the run across Europe, try to figure out who is after them and maybe even learn to trust each other again so that they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after.”