Mariska Hargitay Was “Living a Lie” for 30 Years. Now She’s Embracing Her Mother, Jayne Mansfield—and Her Biological Father

Hargitay sees a hyperlink between the familial silence-breaking of My Mom Jayne and her paintings together with her Joyful Heart Foundation, a nonprofit for survivors of sexual attack, home violence, and kid abuse. In 2017 she produced I Am Evidence, a documentary about hundreds of unprocessed rape kits languishing in America’s police lockers. Last yr, she published that she have been raped by means of a chum throughout her 30s. “That was my own parallel journey with shame and not wanting to carry that anymore,” she says, “wanting for so long to be free of [the secret].”

I Am Evidence (directed by means of Trish Adlesic, who additionally coproduced My Mom Jayne, and Geeta Gandbhir) made Hargitay fall in love with filmmaking, and he or she plans to make extra documentaries. “That’s one of the things I’m carving out in my future at SVU, making sure that I can have the balance.” When I ask in regards to the destiny of tv’s longest-running personality, she clutches her middle. “I’m not done with Olivia Benson yet,” she replies. “She’s got more work to do.”

For now, although, Hargitay is getting ready herself for My Mom Jayne’s premiere at Cannes. Mansfield gave the impression on the pageant in 1958, leaving at the back of a path of glamorous pictures. There’s Mansfield posing in a bikini with a chihuahua; Mansfield waving from the plane steps; Mansfield in a robe dealing with a wall of photographers—all the time smiling, all the time in personality as Jayne Mansfield, bombshell. “The fact that I get to take her back and to tell her story there, I just don’t have the words,” Hargitay tells me, vibrating with fearful pleasure. As we end our dialog, she thinks about the entirety it took to get her so far. “Thirty years, and now it’s coming out.… It’s wild.” She beams so onerous, I fear that her cheeks may explode. “I feel like I’m seven!”

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