Do ‘NCIS’ Creators Finally Reveal Why Cote de Pablo Left the Show?

Cote de Pablo’s departure from “NCIS” left fans puzzled, and while she initially didn’t give a reason for her exit, the show’s creators have since shed light on her departure.

Cote de Pablo’s portrayal of Special Agent Ziva David in “NCIS” was a fan favorite, but her sudden exit from the series in 2013 was a shock. At the time, she didn’t disclose her reasons for leaving the character of Ziva David behind. However, more recently, the show’s creators opened up about the situation.

Charles Floyd Johnson, an executive producer on both “JAG” and “NCIS,” shared insights about Cote de Pablo’s departure in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in September 2023. He explained, “With Cote, I think she had gotten to a place where she wanted to move on. She did eight years on the show, and I had a conversation with her about a year or two before she left, and she said to me, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this forever, and at some point, I think I might leave.’ And I said, ‘Oh, Cote, please, come on. It’s such a successful show. What are you going to do? You should ride this horse all the way to the gate.’ And she said, ‘No, I don’t think so.'”

Johnson added that transitioning from Pablo to Emily Wickersham, who played Eleanor Bishop, posed challenges for the show. “Audiences liked [Cote], but eventually, Emily won out,” he explained. “But I remember it was a little bumpy with her, where you’d get mail, and people would go, ‘She’s no Cote de Pablo.’ Well, we wrote her very differently for that reason.”

Cote de Pablo herself provided a different reason for her exit from the series. She stated that she left because she didn’t like how her character, Ziva David, was being written. “Unfortunately, because of political things and scripts not being good enough, I chose not to [return to NCIS],” she expressed, as reported by Hello! “Look, I love this character! I worked for eight years crafting Ziva when I felt like the character wasn’t being treated with the respect she deserved.”

Pablo disagreed with the direction the writers were taking Ziva, noting their plans to send her “back to Israel” as an “unfortunate, miserable woman.” She felt it wasn’t fair and stated, “I told them until someone can write something really fantastic for Ziva, I won’t come back.”

While fans would love to see Cote de Pablo return to “NCIS” for Season 21, it remains uncertain. Michael Weatherly, her former co-star, has sparked hope for a reunion. In January 2023, Weatherly posted a New Year’s message on Twitter, to which a fan commented, “We all would rather look at you and Ziva reuniting and enjoying that moment.”

Weatherly replied, “Stay tuned … for this might be an interesting year for such ‘moments’!”

The possibility of a reunion remains uncertain, but fans hold out hope to see them back on screen together.