Cote de Pablo Net Worth & Boyfriend

What Is Cote de Pablo’s Net Worth? Who is Cote de Pablo’s boyfriend?

Introduction

Cote de Pablo is a Chilean-born American actress who has gained fame after playing the role of Ziva David on the CBS crime drama ”NCIS.” She was born on November 12, 1979, in Santiago, Chile, as María José de Pablo Fernández.

At age 10, Fernández moved to the US. ”I came to the States when I was ten, and that was, in many ways, very hard,” she said.

Her mother set the move in motion.

María Olga Fernández accepted a job at Telemundo in Miami and the family landed in Florida, where María José went to Arvida Middle School and later to New World School of the Arts.

Classmates struggled with pronunciation of her first name. So she went by Cote, the usual Chilean nickname for María José.

Television found her through a photo on a desk.

A producer spotted her picture on her mother’s desk and asked if the teenager wanted to be on TV.

Her real target was musical theater.

“If I could make a living by singing and acting and doing musicals, that’s what I wanted to do,” she told Carnegie Mellon Today, in an interview.

Her brother works as a DJ.

In 2000, Cote earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theater from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In the same year, she made her television debut as the host of the talk show ”Control.”

In 2001, Fernández appeared on the NYC Public Theater stage in the Shakespeare play, Measure for Measure. Also in 2001, Cote performed in the TV series ”The Education of Max Bickford.”

In 2005, Cote played Dolores Fuentes in the stage musical ”The Mambo Kings.”

NCIS

In 2005, she started to perform in the CBS television series ”NCIS” as Ziva David — an Israeli citizen and a friend of NCIS Director Jenny Shepard. Ziva speaks ten languages – Russian, English, Italian, Hebrew, German, Spanish, Pashto, French, Turkish, and Arabic.

”Coming from the theater, I love the adrenaline rush from working on NCIS,” Fernández said in an interview. She added: ”You get home, and you’re exhausted, but you feel like you’ve really worked.”

Sideways

Her last NCIS audition, in front of CBS heads, went off the rails.

Michael Weatherly left the script and grabbed her face.

He also said she looked “so much like Salma Hayek,” she recalled in a TV Guide interview that TVLine resurfaced in November 2025 (TVLine links to a 2010 archive copy of the original).

“I thought it was disrespectful and completely unprofessional,” was her verdict. Her answer in the room was to fight back. “I immediately perked up and went, ‘I will not allow this actor to do this to me,'” she recalled.

For her performance in NCIS, Cote won an Imagen Award at the Imagen Foundation Awards for Best Supporting Actress in Television in 2006, as well as ALMA Awards for Favourite Television Actress Leading Role in a Drama in 2011.

Abrupt departure from NCIS

In October 2013, Fernández left NCIS for ‘undisclosed reasons,’ after playing Ziva David in 189 NCIS episodes. ”As far as my decision to leave, that’s a personal thing, and I’d rather leave it at that,” she said in 2013.

”It was huge news to us,” said Pauley Perrette (Abby Sciuto in NCIS). ”I found out literally 20 minutes before it was released in the press … No one wanted her to leave.”

”We offered Cote de Pablo a lot of money – then we offered her even more money,” said CBS CEO Leslie Moonves. He continued: ”We really didn’t want to lose her; we love her. We think she’s terrific.”

”I didn’t leave because I wanted to go or because I was ready or because I was tired. I didn’t really have an option,” Cote said in a 2019 interview.

Moonves did not stop at money in that 2013 session with the Television Critics Association.

“Ultimately she decided she didn’t want to do the show,” he said.

She had no backup project. “Leaving ‘NCIS’ was not planned, so there is no plan,” she said to ET that year.

In 2016 she offered a reason at a Q&A: “They were going to send [Ziva] back to Israel and make her an unfortunate, miserable woman. I didn’t think it was fair”.

The Dovekeepers

In 2015, she performed in ”The Dovekeepers,” a two-part TV adaptation based on the book of the same name by Alice Hoffman.

”It’s a remarkable story of survival, human spirit, and love,” she told CBS about The Dovekeepers. ”It’s about people fighting for what they believe in.”

In 2019, she portrayed Celeste in the drama ”Seneca.”

She returned to NCIS in season 16, on the finale, which aired in May 2019. ”When I walked out, I thought it was over, and that was it,” Cote declared.

”She comes back to save Gibbs from a potential threat, and it’s a very big threat,” stated de Pablo about Ziva David. She went on to say: ”She has not been in touch with her daughter, which is a real source of pain for this character.”

In 2025, Cote de Pablo starred in 10 episodes of NCIS: Tony & Ziva.

Husband/Boyfriend

Cote de Pablo is not married and is not currently in a relationship.

From 2000 to 2015, Cote de Pablo was in a long-term relationship with Diego Serrano, an Ecuadorian-born American actor who performed in The Young and the Restless, Another World, Time of Your Life, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and CSI: Miami. Diego Serrano has an estimated net worth of $1 million.

”He’s the worst influence that I have ever had in my entire life, and I love him for it,” Cote told Prevention in 2012. She continued: ”If it weren’t for him, I’d be the most boring person in Los Angeles.”

It is unclear if Cote de Pablo is dating anyone now.

READ MORE: Who is Thomas Beaudoin’s wife?

Height

5′ 7″ (1.7 m)

Quotes

”I’m not on social media, so it’s incredible. It’s almost like you’re talking about a world that I’m not a part of.”

”My priority is to hang out with the ones I love – my family, my loved ones.”

”My objective was not to be liked ever. If people liked me, fantastic. But I’m not trying to please people.”

”I’ve seen the majestic beauty of nature and the overwhelming perfection of it.”

Trivia

She is best friends with David McCallum and Mark Harmon.

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Cote de Pablo – Net Worth

So, how much is Cote de Pablo worth? Fernández earned most of her wealth from starring in 194 episodes of NCIS. Her salary was raised to $120,000 per episode in 2011. Therefore, Chilean-American actress Cote de Pablo has an estimated net worth of $10 million.

Cote also performed in Seneca, The Dovekeepers, The Jury, The Education of Max Bickford, and The $treet. On stage, she has appeared in several productions, such as “Measure for Measure” and “The Mambo Kings.”

She was featured on The 33’s official soundtrack.

In 2004, Fernández appeared in a Volkswagen commercial.

Her salary peaked in NCIS at $120,000 per episode, which on a 24-episode run comes to nearly $3 million a year in base pay, before residuals (fees paid when episodes rerun or stream), which are not public. Her pay for the spinoff remain undisclosed, and so does any producer fee.

Year	Payday or deal	Amount
2005	Cast as Ziva David, NCIS	Never made public
2005-2013	Peak NCIS episode fee	$120,000 per episode
2005-2013	Base pay, 24-episode year	Nearly $3 million
2013	CBS counteroffer before exit	“A lot of money”
2015	The 33 and The Dovekeepers	No public figure
2019	Ziva returns, seasons 16 and 17	Fee unreported
2025	Tony & Ziva, star and producer	Undisclosed sum

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