Pauley Perrette Details Her Terrifying Health Scare
Former "NCIS" star Pauley Perrette has experienced a number of terrifying health scares over the years, including one that was caused by her most famous role.
Her fan-favorite character on "NCIS," Abby Sciutto, was a forensic scientist, but Perrette got to add plenty of flair to her work look by rocking punk and goth clothing underneath her lab coat. To give Sciutto an extra degree of goth authenticity, Perrette dyed her hair black. Unfortunately, she suffered a serious allergic reaction to an ingredient in her hair dye, PPD, and had to be hospitalized. "My right eye was almost swollen shut and the other half of my face had gotten twice the size of my head," she told ET. "If I do this wrong again, I could die."
Perrette revealed that she had another brush with death a year later when she was attacked by an unhoused man outside her home. She shared her account of the harrowing ordeal on Twitter, revealing that the man grabbed her by the arm and punched her in the face. "Then he showed me how he was going to kill me," she wrote. But thankfully, after he threatened Perrette's life multiple times, he let her go. The actor also tweeted a photo of herself in a hospital bed in 2019 — but didn't reveal what landed her there — and now she's opening up about yet another scary experience that put her life at risk.
Pauley Perrette suffered a life-threatening stroke
On September 2, Pauley Perrette shared a tweet that read in part, "One year ago I had a massive stroke." In an interview with ET, she recalled waking up and realizing that she couldn't feel one side of her body at all. She called her doctor and was told to go to the ER. "I was on a gurney with a million things stuck in my arms and a bunch of medical people rushing me somewhere," she said of her latest hospital stay. Thankfully, she has fully recovered.
Perrette's Twitter health update included a video. "Yes, I'm still here, again. Like how many times do I cheat death?" she said before proceeding to list off her other frightening and potentially life-threatening experiences, including surviving rape and domestic abuse. In a previous tweet, she revealed that she was raped by a fellow student in high school, and according to Fox News, Perrette has accused her ex-husband, musician Francis "Coyote" Shivers, of harassment and sexual abuse.
The retired actor also mentioned suffering from food allergies. "I'm deathly allergic to HERBS! It seems annoying, I feel annoying, but I would rather be annoying than in the hospital again or dead," she tweeted in 2019. And her list of terrible misfortunes included her father's tragic death from Covid-19 in 2021. "Yet still a survivor after this traumatic life I've been given so far ... And still so grateful, Still so full of faith, And STILL HERE!" she wrote.