Mariska Hargitay has revealed she was raped by a friend in her 30s.
The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actress, who turns 60 later this month, made the revelation in a candid essay in People magazine.
"He was a friend. Then he wasn't," she recalled. "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."
Mariska went on to explain that she couldn't process what had happened to her so she "cut it out" and "removed it from (her) narrative", even downplaying the incident when discussing it with her husband, Peter Hermann, and her friends.
"My husband Peter 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. They were the first ones to call it what it was," she explained. "Then I had my own realization. My own reckoning... Now I'm able to see clearly what was done to me."
The actress, who founded the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 to help survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, now wants an acknowledgement and an apology from her attacker.
"(I want him to say) I'm sorry for what I did to you. I raped you. I am without excuse," she wrote. "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."
Concluding her essay, Mariska added, "I'm turning 60, and I'm so deeply grateful for where I am. I'm renewed and I'm flooded with compassion for all of us who have suffered. And I'm still proudly in process."
The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actress, who turns 60 later this month, made the revelation in a candid essay in People magazine.
"He was a friend. Then he wasn't," she recalled. "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."
Mariska went on to explain that she couldn't process what had happened to her so she "cut it out" and "removed it from (her) narrative", even downplaying the incident when discussing it with her husband, Peter Hermann, and her friends.
"My husband Peter 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. They were the first ones to call it what it was," she explained. "Then I had my own realization. My own reckoning... Now I'm able to see clearly what was done to me."
The actress, who founded the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 to help survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, now wants an acknowledgement and an apology from her attacker.
"(I want him to say) I'm sorry for what I did to you. I raped you. I am without excuse," she wrote. "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."
Concluding her essay, Mariska added, "I'm turning 60, and I'm so deeply grateful for where I am. I'm renewed and I'm flooded with compassion for all of us who have suffered. And I'm still proudly in process."