11 ‘NCIS’ Stars Who Left the Show — And Why
For a TV show that has been on the air as long as NCIS has, and for a production as demanding as NCIS’s seems to be, it’s a small wonder the CBS procedural has only seen relatively few cast exits.
Even so, NCIS has said goodbye to nearly a dozen series regulars since its 2003 debut… and not all of those partings were amicable, it seems. Here’s how and why each alum was written off the show.
Sasha Alexander (Caitlin Todd)
In a shocking twist in the Season 2 finale, Kate is fatally shot by terrorist Ari Haswari (Rudolf Martin). Alexander left the show because she wanted a lighter workload, and creator Donald P. Bellisario decided to kill her character off instead of easing up on her schedule, executive producer Chas. Floyd Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023.
Lauren Holly (Jenny Shepard)
At the end of NCIS’s fifth season, Shepard is killed in a shootout with a hit squad. “To be honest, now that the work bug had bitten me again, I got bored with my part of the [NCIS director],” Holly wrote on her official website. “Then the decision was made to kill me, and boy did they. About five different ways!”
Cote de Pablo (Ziva David)
De Pablo exited the show at the start of Season 11, with Ziva opting to stay in her native Israel rather than rejoin the NCIS team. “When I felt or I perceived the character was not being treated with the respect she deserved, all the money in the world couldn’t [bring me back].” the actor said in a 2016 Q&A. “They were going to send her back to Israel and make her an unfortunate, miserable woman. I said, ‘What do I leave all the women [who] have watched and followed the show for so long?’ And I didn’t think it was fair.”
She eventually returned to the role in 2019 for a guest stint and starred in the short-lived spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
Michael Weatherly (Anthony DiNozzo)
When Ziva is presumed dead at the end of Season 13, Tony resigns from the NCIS team to take care of their daughter, whom he has just discovered. And it sounds like the grueling NCIS work schedule had Weatherly exhausted. “When [Michael] left NCIS, he said to me, ‘I am never going to do network television again,’” showrunner Steven D. Binder told TVLine in 2022. “He had just had some kids, and the hours are so long.”
He eventually did return in 2024 and for the spinoff alongside de Pablo.
Jennifer Esposito (Alex Quinn)
Alex takes a leave of absence to care for her mother in the Season 14 finale, and though health issues sidelined Esposito from her Blue Bloods gig, that wasn’t the case for her one-season tenure on NCIS. “No, I am not ill,” she wrote on Twitter (now X) in 2017. “Was not meant to be there long but happy I was. Met some great new friends! Love [to you] all.”
Duane Henry (Clayton Reeves)
Henry ended his two-year NCIS run at the end of Season 5, with Clayton dying as he protects Abby from hitman Kent Marshall (Mark Engelhardt). The actor told TVLine in a 2018 exit interview that he was ready for new ventures. “Obviously, there are a lot of characters in a lot of the stories, [so] you have to have a lot of patience with this type of gig, and I felt like I wanted to be doing way more,” he said. “I want to be out there hitting it, like every young actor does. I guess the universe sort of got wind of that.”
Pauley Perrette (Abby Sciuto)
Devastated by Clayton’s death, Abby resigns from her NCIS job at the end of Season 15. As for Perrette’s departure, Johnson told THR she didn’t think it was safe for Harmon to bring his dog to set, adding that the dog “apparently bit someone” during production. In 2019, Perrette tweeted about Harmon, saying in one post she was terrified of him and mentioning him allegedly “attacking” her. In another post, she shared photos of a crew member with an apparent dog bite injury, explaining she “fought like hell to keep it from happening again” and was “physically assaulted for saying no” before losing her job.
Maria Bello (Jack Sloane)
Midway through Season 18, Jack decides to stay in Afghanistan to help keep villagers safe from the Taliban. Bello had only signed on for a three-year run on NCIS, according to Newsweek. The magazine also speculated that Bello may have wanted to focus on her work co-writing and producing the film The Woman King.
Emily Wickersham (Ellie Bishop)
The Season 18 finale sees Ellie resign after confessing to leaking classified documents, though viewers later learned that was a ruse to free Ellie up for a deep-cover mission. “I was ready to leave the show,” Wickersham said on the Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch podcast in 2024, adding that she became pregnant with her first child a month after her NCIS exit. “It was time, and I was ready to move on to something else, and I guess this was the something else I was meant to move on to.”
However, she returned in the midseason premiere in 2026
Mark Harmon (Leroy Jethro Gibbs)
Shortly into Season 19, Harmon left his position at the top of the NCIS call sheet, with Gibbs opting to stay in Alaska after solving a case there. “It wasn’t so much a decision to leave as it was maybe just the right timing to push away a little bit,” Harmon told Parade in 2024. “I was thrilled with the storyline they came up with and how they handled the character.”
He eventually returned to the role in the spinoff NCIS: Origins, which he also narrates
David McCallum (Donald “Ducky” Mallard)
Ducky dies in his sleep offscreen at the start of Season 21, shortly after McCallum’s September 2023 death at age 90. “Oh, David,” Perrette wrote on Instagram after her former costar passed. “What a life. What a legend. What a journey. And your legacy will always be the love you have for your family. Love to Katherine [Carpenter, McCallum wife] and the kids and the grandkids, your absolutely very favorite things.”
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