Mariska Hargitay Reveals She Was Raped

Warning: This article discusses themes of rape, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. 

Mariska Hargitay, star of 'Law & Order: SVU,' has opened up about a traumatic experience she had in her life for the first time. 

She revealed in an emotional new essay that she is a victim of rape. 

She explained the incident occurred when she was in her 30s, and her rapist wasn't a stranger. She shared that she knew the accuser very well, and that he was her "friend." 

Mariska recalled the incident was all about "dominance and control, overpowering control." She never named the abuser. 

“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. I didn’t want it to escalate to violence. 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.”

At the time she was unable to "process" what happened, and attempted to push it to the back of her mind, for the longest time. 

“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. It never happened. Now I honor that part: I did what I had to do to survive.”

For years, she tried everything to move on from the experience. She said she dove into her work with The Joyful Heart Foundation, which helps support and empower survivors of sexual assault and abuse. 

“I was building Joyful Heart on the outside so I could do the work on the inside. I think I also needed to see what healing could look like. I look back on speeches where I said, ‘I’m not a survivor.’ I wasn’t being untruthful; it wasn’t how I thought of myself.”

When sharing the incident with others, she said she often "minimised" it, and even downplayed what happened when she told her husband, Peter Herman. 

She told him "it wasn't rape." However, over time, the more she spoke about it, she eventually realised it was exactly that. 

“Then things started shifting in me, and I began talking about it more in earnest with those closest to me. They were the first ones to call it what it was. They were gentle and kind and careful, but their naming it was important. It wasn’t a confrontation, like ‘You need to deal with what happened,’ it was more like looking at it in the light of day: ‘Here is what it means when someone rapes another person, so on your own time, it could be useful to compare that to what was done to you.’ Then I had my own realization. My own reckoning.”

“Now I’m able to see clearly what was done to me. I understand the neurobiology of trauma. Trauma fractures our mind and our memory. The way a mirror fractures.”

Since she's come to terms with it, she explained it was other survivors that approached because of her work on 'SVU' that gave her so much "strength."

“Survivors who’ve watched the show have told me I’ve helped them and given them strength. But they’re the ones who’ve been a source of strength for me. They’ve experienced darkness and cruelty, an utter disregard for another human being, and they’ve done what they needed to survive. For some, that means making Olivia Benson a big part of their lives — which is an honor beyond measure — for others, it means building a foundation. We’re strong, and we find a way through.”

When it comes to her rapist, she knows exactly what kind of justice she wants, nearly three decades following the incident, "an apology." 

“For me, I want an acknowledgment and an apology. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I raped you. I am without excuse.’ That is a beginning. I don’t know what is on the other side of it, and it won’t undo what happened, but I know it plays a role in how I will work through this. This is a painful part of my story. The experience was horrible. But it doesn’t come close to defining me, in the same way that no other single part of my story defines me. No single part of anyone’s story defines them.”