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Revealed: Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay has helped cops investigate more than 11,000 sex assault cases and track down 22 serial rapists after revealing she was herself a victim of rape
Law & Order: SUV star Mariska Hargitay has helped authorities investigate more than 11,000 sex assault cases, it has emerged.
Hargitay, 60, is known for her portrayal of Captain Olivia Benson, a detective with the New York Police Department's fictional Special Victims Unit, on the hit TV show.
Throughout the program, Benson and her team work to investigate extremely sensitive and heinous crimes, often involving sexual assault or harassments.
The actress has now helped investigators in Michigan identify 22 'serial rapists' by funding prosecutor Kym Worthy's mission to process 11,000 untested rape kits that had been sitting in a police evidence room, The Today Show reported.
It comes after Hargitay earlier this year revealed how she had been raped by a friend when she was in her 30s. She said she 'minimized' the rape over the years before coming to a point of 'reckoning'.
Mariska Hargitay, pictured filming Law & Order: SUV on August 5, has helped authorities investigate more than 11,000 sex assault cases
She helped investigators in Wayne County, Michigan identify 22 'serial rapists' by funding prosecutor Kym Worthy's (pictured in 2015) mission to process 11,000 untested rape kits that had been sitting in a police evidence room
When Hargitay learned of the staggering backlog of untested rape kits in Wayne County, she 'made it her mission to get all of them tested'.
Through her Joyful Heart Foundation - which Hargitay founded in 2004 to support the healing of survivors and alter society's response to sexual assault - she launched the End the Backlog program.
The program aims to end 'injustice' by working to 'identify jurisdictions with rape kit backlogs' and assist with 'developing and implementing survivor-centered reforms'.
The charity helped Wayne County raise enough money to test 11,000 kits, which journalist Andrea Canning says has had a 'ripple effect across the country'.
'It's making changes everywhere — for police departments, for prosecutors' offices,' Canning told the Today Show.
'So hats off to Kym Worthy…. She deserves the biggest pat on the back for this. Thousands of cases were solved. They found 22 serial rapists among these kits.'
Earlier this year The Law & Order: SVU actress, shared for the first time details of the terrifying assault she suffered decades ago in a heartbreaking first-person essay for People.
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.
Hargitay, pictured filming the TV show on August 5, earlier this year revealed how she had been raped by a friend when she was in her 30s
Mariska Hargitay 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 (pictured October with Hermann)
'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.
Hargitay 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.'
Hargitay 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.'
The Law & Order: SVU actress (pictured on the show in 2022) said she 'checked out of her body' during the terrifying assault in a heartbreaking first-person essay - she is seen in the show in 2002 aged 38
In September of this year she will celebrate the 25th anniversary of her hit series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (pictured)
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.
Next month, Hargitay will celebrate the 25th anniversary of her hit series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
The actress 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 Hargitay was left to become the lead character on the program.
In May, Hargitay's real life mirrored that of her character's when a lost child wandered up to where SVU was filming, mistaking the actress for a police officer, and asked her for help.
Like Benson, the actress quickly provided comfort to the scared little girl and helped successfully reunite her with her mother, She then consoled the mother-daughter duo, before returning to work.
Mariska Hargitay also sprung to action in May this year to help reunite a lost child with her mother after getting mistaken for an on-duty police officer
'This little angel girl was in need and we connected and I could see that,' Hargitay told Entertainment Tonight of the incident. 'So I did what any mother on this planet would do.'
Previously, Hargitay has spoken about channeling the mindset of Olivia Benson in emergency situations.
'There’s a thing: WWOBD, ‘What would Olivia Benson do?’ The fans would always talk about it, and one day it hit me. I also have those moments where I’ve sort of slipped into her,' she told People in January.
She continued: 'If there’s a crisis, I just take over and lead like that. Being strong and fearless. It’s sort of this perfect feminist story.'