After going through her own traumatic experience with sexual assault, Hargitay shifted her focus to helping other survivors of abuse and sexual violence — with her latest efforts helping to find nearly two dozen serial rapists.
Mariska Hargitay has been key in investigating “over 11,000” sexual assault cases in Detroit, Michigan.
The 60-year-old actor is known for playing Law & Order: SVU’s Olivia Benson — the commanding officer of a fictional Special Victims Unit in New York City and steadfast detective determined to solve crimes of a sexual nature and catch the perpetrators.
Talk about another “life imitates art” moment (Hargitay was mistaken for a real cop when a lost little girl approached her), the news podcast Dateline True Crime Weekly will look into how Hargitay funded the mission of prosecutor Kym Worthy, after she found more than 11,000 untested rape kits sitting on a shelf in a police evidence room.
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“They found 22 serial rapists among these kits and they needed money for this effort so who stepped in? None other than Law & Order’s Mariska Hargitay,” Andrea Canning, the podcast host and veteran NBC News journalist, said on the Today show.
“She helped them raise the money to get this done and it’s having a ripple effect across the country. It’s making changes everywhere, from police departments to prosecutors’ offices.”
Hargitay has had her own traumatic experience with sexual assault. In an essay written by the star for People, Hargitay, opened up about her assault, a “reckoning” she said she’s only just recently come to terms with.
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Mariska Hargitay Reveals She Was Sexually Assaulted in New Essay, Had Her Own ‘Reckoning’
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“He was a friend. Then he wasn’t. I tried all the ways I knew to get out of it. I tried to make jokes, to be charming, to set a boundary, to reason, to say no. He grabbed me by the arms and held me down. I was terrified,” Hargitay recalled.
“I didn’t want it to escalate to violence,” she continued. “I now know it was already sexual violence, but I was afraid he would become physically violent. I went into freeze mode, a common trauma response when there is no option to escape. I checked out of my body.”
Unable to process the pain, Hargitay did what she had to to survive — she removed the trauma from her narrative.
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“I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t believe that it happened. That it could happen. So I cut it out. I removed it from my narrative. I now have so much empathy for the part of me that made that choice because that part got me through it,” she explained. “It never happened. Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive.”
Hargitay shifted her focus to helping other survivors of abuse and sexual violence, all the while not including herself in the count.
“For a long time, I focused on creating a foundation to help survivors of abuse and sexual violence heal. I was building Joyful Heart on the outside so I could do the work on the inside,” she shared.
The National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline — 800.656.HOPE (4673) — provides free, 24/7 support for those in need.
