Mariska Hargitay reveals how husband Peter Hermann reacted to her sexual assault
The 61-year-old actress appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast with Alex Cooper as she revealed the effects of telling Peter Hermann - who she has been married to since 2004 - about the abuse.
At the time Mariska recalled to the now 57-year-old actor what had happened and he confirmed that it was a sexual assault.
She explained: 'That's why I understand about denial and dissociating and I have so much room for that.
'Now, I look at it and I say I'm grateful for that part of myself that kept me safe, for that part of myself that said you're not ready to deal with it.'
Back in January 2024, the talented actress made the revelation as she said she 'checked out of her body' during the terrifying assault in a heartbreaking first-person essay for People.
On the podcast, she candidly talked about how she was 'in denial' over the assault.
Mariska explained: 'I couldn't process that I couldn't get out of it. I have gotten out of so many things through my intellect, through comedy, through just outsmarting.
'I couldn't understand that I couldn't. That just lived in me and so I blamed myself and then it got to the point where it just became so clear what happened.'
Previously, the Law & Order: Special Victims Unite actress had candidly opened up about being raped.
In the 2024 essay, she wrote: 'A man raped me in my thirties. It wasn't sexual at all. It was dominance and control. Overpowering control. 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.'
The star said she went into 'freeze mode' after the assault as she couldn't process what had happened.
She said: '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.
Mariska founded the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004, which aims to support the healing of survivors and alter society's response to sexual assault - and said the foundation enabled her to begin healing.
She wrote: '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,'' she writes. 'I wasn't being untruthful; it wasn't how I thought of myself.'
Mariska said she 'minimized' the rape over the years before she had a 'reckoning and realization: 'My husband Peter (Hermann) remembers me saying, 'I mean, it wasn't rape.' Then things started shifting in me, and I began talking about it more in earnest with those closest to me.'
She said she now wants 'an acknowledgment and an apology' from her attacker, writing: 'As for justice, it's important to know that it may look different for each survivor. 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."
'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.'
She turns 60 in two weeks, and then in September of this year she will celebrate the 25th anniversary of her hit series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Mariska, whose mother was the legendary 1950s pinup Jayne Mansfield, played second fiddle on the show for the first decade.
From 1999 until 2011, the leading man on the program was Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler, with Mariska offering support as Olivia Benson.
'I was the second detective alongside Elliot Stabler. He was the male lead and a little more experienced and I was trying to catch up,' she reflected.
Then, however, Christopher Meloni left the program in 2011 and Mariska was left to become the lead character on the program.
Life imitated art, as around that same time her character Olivia Benson was getting promoted, eventually ascending to the position of squad captain.
She was tragically killed at the age of 34 in a grisly car accident - with three of her children, including three-year-old Mariska, in the backseat.
Mariska's father was the Hungarian heartthrob Mickey Hargitay, who earned the bodybuilding title Mr. Universe in 1955.
After Jayne's tragic death, Mariska moved in with her father, who was able to provide her with a stable upbringing until she ventured into acting herself.
She has been married to Hermann, 56, since 2004 and the pair share three children.
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