Richard Foreman/CBSMichael Weatherly's DiNozzo will say goodbye to NCIS without the help of Ziva. Cote de Pablo reportedly confirmed she will not return to help Weatherly's NCIS character ride off into the sunset. The comments were made during an appearance at Babson College while promoting The 33.
CBS did not return request for comment.
During the question and answer, de Pablo spoke out about the direction of Ziva and certain "political things" that played a part in her decision.
"...And scripts not being good enough, I chose not to," she said in a fan video from the Q&A. "Look, I love this character. I worked eight years crafting this character and loving her…"
NCIS executive producer Gary Glasberg wouldn't confirm whether or not de Pablo would appear in Weatherly's final episode, but he did tell E! News the character will be a factor in his exit.
"Tony's relationship with Ziva absolutely will have an impact on his reason to depart," Glasberg told us. "There's no part of Tony DiNozzo that Ziva David isn't a part of. She's a huge aspect of who his character is so it would be unfair and wrong to write this episode, to produce this episode and not have her character be a part of it."
Weatherly has been with the CBS drama since the start, 13 seasons ago. But now the character is at a crossroads. "He really has to make some really significant decisions, big enough that would pull him away from his NCIS family," Glasberg teased. "That was really the challenge of all this, and in thinking about it for the last six months, is how do we come up with something that's big enough that would have Tony no longer be a part of this group? And hopefully the fans and the audience will find that satisfying."
NCIS airs Tuesdays, 8 p.m. on CBS.