Mark Harmon and Pauley Perrette were co-stars for over a decade. As Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Abby Scutio, the actors brought a chemistry and an onscreen charisma that helped to make NCIS the ratings giant that it remains today. Unfortunately, the chemistry they displayed on screen did not carry over into real life.
Harmon and Perrette got along famously until 2017, when behind the scenes drama led to the latter exiting the show. According to Hello! Magazine, the tension between the two actors kicked off when Harmon’s dog bit a member of the crew, and Perrette asked that the dog no longer be brought onto the set. The request was not honored, and increasing tensions led to an agreement in which Harmon and Perrette no longer had to film scenes together.
Of course, given the relevance of both of their characters to NCIS, the arrangement proved difficult. Perrette told CBS Sunday Morning that she eventually buckled under the discomfort she was feeling onset, and decided to leave the show ahead of its sixteenth season. Things seemed relatively cordial, at least to the public, until Perrette took to X (formerly Twitter) to air out her grievances with Harmon and the show.
“Maybe I’m wrong for not ‘spilling the beans’,” she added. “Telling the story, THE TRUTH. I feel I have to protect my crew, jobs and so many people. But at what cost? I don’t know. Just know, I’m trying to do the right thing, but maybe silence isn’t the right thing about crime. I’m… Just… ?” Several tweets followed, though they were cryptic in terms of what they were alluding to.
A year later, Perrette tweeted a refusal to rejoin NCIS, and stated that she was “terrified” of Harmon. She also said that she has nightmares about the actor attacking her. Harmon has never publicly discussed these comments, and the only real acknowledgement of Perrette’s statements on the part of CBS came in a written statement. They praised her performance on the show and vowed to create a more friendly workplace environment on the set.
Harmon is no longer acting on NCIS, but he remains an executive producer. Perrette has continued to land television roles, with the most notable being a supporting role on the miniseries When We Rise (2017) and a starring role on the sitcom Broke (2020). While the specifics of what transpired between the two actors remains unclear, what is clear is that they did not get along, and the network had to go out of their way to make sure that they didn’t appear in the same scene together.
With that in mind, it’s safe to assume that Harmon and Perrette are not friends in real life, and they do not plan on being friends at any point in the future.
