Why Did Ziva, Tony, Abby and Gibbs Leave ‘NCIS’? Every Exit and Who’s Back

• NCIS has written off 11 series regulars since it premiered on CBS in 2003. Four of them died on the show; the rest left alive.
• Of the seven who left alive, four have come back, including Michael Weatherly‘s Tony DiNozzo, now the NCIS director as of the Season 24 premiere.
• Mark Harmon‘s Gibbs walks back into headquarters to see Tony on NCIS: Origins on Tuesday, Oct. 20.

NCIS has said goodbye to 11 series regulars since it premiered on CBS in 2003, and the reasons range from punishing hours to a dispute over a dog on set. Cote de Pablo has said she walked away from Ziva David on principle.

Here is every main character who left, how the show wrote them out, why the actor went and who has come back.

Every NCIS main character exit, in order

The pattern is how TV keeps doors open. A death closes the door for good, which is what happened to Kate, Jenny, Reeves and Ducky. Of the seven characters who left alive, four have returned.

Why did Ziva leave NCIS?

On the show, Ziva chooses to stay in Israel at the start of Season 11 after avenging her father. De Pablo said in a 2016 Q&A at Babson College that the writers planned to send Ziva back to Israel as “an unfortunate, miserable woman.” CBS said at the time that leaving was her decision.

All the money in the world couldn’t [bring me back].

Cote de Pablo, at Babson College in 2016

She came back anyway, in the Season 16 finale in 2019 and into Season 17, and then co-led the Paramount+ spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva with Weatherly in 2025. It was canceled after one season.

Why did Tony leave NCIS?

Tony resigns at the end of Season 13 to raise Tali, the daughter he just learned he had with Ziva.

Off camera, the schedule wore Weatherly out. Showrunner Steven D. Binder told TVLine in 2022 that Weatherly said he was “never going to do network television again,” because he had young kids and the hours were so long.

He went straight to the CBS legal drama Bull. Now he’s back as the new NCIS director, starting with the Season 24 premiere on Oct. 6, and on Tuesday’s NCIS: Origins, Gibbs comes to him for help after being shot.

Why did Abby leave NCIS?

On the show, Abby resigns after Clayton Reeves dies protecting her, and she leaves Gibbs a letter instead of saying goodbye in person. Off the show, Pauley Perrette‘s exit is the one that turned contentious.

In posts on X (then Twitter) in 2018 and 2019, Perrette wrote about “multiple physical assaults” on set, said she was afraid of Harmon and shared photos of what she said was a crew member’s injury from a dog bite.

Executive producer Chas. Floyd Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that she didn’t think it was safe for Harmon to bring his dog to set, and that the dog “apparently bit someone.”

CBS said in 2018 that Perrette had come to the network with “a workplace concern” more than a year earlier, and that it “took the matter seriously and worked with her to find a resolution.”

Why did Gibbs leave NCIS?

Four episodes into Season 19, in October 2021, Gibbs solves a case in Alaska and decides to stay. Harmon told Parade in 2024 that it wasn’t so much a decision to leave as “maybe just the right timing to push away a little bit.”

He never fully left. Harmon narrates the prequel NCIS: Origins, where Austin Stowell plays young Gibbs, and appears as the older Gibbs in every episode of its third season, which pulls him out of retirement. The Oct. 20 episode reunites him with Weatherly’s Tony, a decade after they last shared the screen.

NCIS: Origins airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS and streams on Paramount+.

More TV exits explained: why Law & Order killed off Reid Scott’s Det. Riley and why “S.W.A.T. Exiles” has a new cast. More from the franchise: what to know about “NCIS: New York”. More in Movies & TV.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Cote de Pablo at Babson College (2016); Steven D. Binder to TVLine (2022); Chas. Floyd Johnson to The Hollywood Reporter (2023); Mark Harmon to Parade (2024); Pauley Perrette on X (2018–19); CBS statement (2018), via Newsweek; Lauren Holly, Emily Wickersham and Duane Henry exit accounts, via TV Insider (Dan Clarendon); Deadline (Rosy Cordero) on the “NCIS: Origins” reunion; Entertainment Weekly (Ryan Coleman) on Bishop’s return. Photos and video: Paramount+, CBS.