NCIS star Cote de Pablo turned down a significant amount of cash to stay on the hit series.
Although the actress famously bid farewell to the series earlier this month, the network tried their hardest to keep her on board. This included trying to fill her bank account with a lot of digits. Unfortunately, de Pablo decided to part ways with the series .
CBS’ Les Moonves discussed her departure during the Television Critics Association press tour on Saturday. According to the CEO, they didn’t let her go without a fight.
“We offered Cote de Pablo a lot of money, and then we offered her even more money. We didn’t want to lose her. We obviously were in discussions. Ultimately, she decided she didn’t want to do the show. We did everything humanly possible [to keep her],” Moonves said over the weekend.
The CBS CEO stopped short of saying just how much money they threw at Cote de Pablo to keep on her the show. Despite their best efforts, the network couldn’t keep the actress around for another season. Moonves said fans are understandably upset by her decision .
“We’re, obviously, getting a lot of emails. There’s a lot of Twitter buzz about her, and rightly so. She’s a wonderful lady. Look, NCIS was the highest-rated show on television last year,” he explained.
The CEO added, “We don’t like losing anybody. But we did everything humanly possible. We feel like we exhausted every opportunity, and she just decided she didn’t want to do the show.”
Cote de Pablo announced her decision to leave NCIS in a statement with The Hollywood Reporter on July 10. The actress has appeared on the hit series since season three.
“I’ve had eight great years with NCIS and Ziva David. I have huge respect and affection for Mark [Harmon], Gary [Glasberg], Michael [Weatherly], David [McCallum], Rocky [Carroll], Pauley [Perrette], Brian [Dietzen], Sean [Murray], all of the team and CBS. I look forward to finishing Ziva’s story,” the actress explained.
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[Image via CBS]
