Mariska Hargitay
After “living a lie” for thirty years, Mariska Hargitay came clean about who her biological father was.
Nelson Sardelli :
In an interview published on Saturday, May 17, the 61-year-old Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star told Vanity Fair that her biological father is Italian singer and comedian Nelson Sardelli, not bodybuilder and actor Mickey Hargitay, as she had always been told.
The tragic aftermath of a June 1967 car accident that killed Mariska’s mother, actress Jayne Mansfield, and seriously injured the future Law & Order star at the age of three is examined in her new documentary, My Mom Jayne.
Paul Mansfield
The movie reveals, among other things, that Mariska’s mother had a brief affair with Nelson, 90, prior to the birth of her daughter and divorced from her ex-husband Mickey,
with whom she had two other children. Before Mariska was born, Jayne promptly ended her relationship with the singer and went back to Mickey. (After her 1964 divorce from Mickey,
Jayne had a son, Tony, born in 1965, with her third husband, Matt Cimber, and an older daughter, Jayne Marie, born in 1950, with her first husband, Paul Mansfield.)
In a hilarious homage to Mariska Hargitay’s birthday, Christopher Meloni calls her by her adorable nickname: “Marsha, celebrate it!”
Mariska was raised by Mickey and her two siblings, Mickey Jr. (born in 1958) and Zoltán (born in 1960). She didn’t realize the truth until she saw a photo of Nelson when she was in her twenties.
In My Mom Jayne, she describes how it felt like the floor collapsed beneath her. “As if my infrastructure had vanished.”
Mariska remembered their one and only discussion of the subject, during which Mickey angrily insisted that he was her biological father. In 2006 Mickey passed away at age 80.
At the age of 30, the actress finally had her first encounter with Nelson. Nelson claimed to have been “waiting 30 years for this moment,” but Mariska recalled going “all Olivia Benson on him.” (She has been on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit since 1999, playing the tough-as-nails NYPD detective Olivia Benson.)
“I thought, ‘I don’t need anything from you, and I don’t want anything.'” “I have a father,” Mariska remarked. Something about loyalty came up. I wished to remain faithful to Mickey.
But in the end, Mariska and Nelson and his family reconciled. In the end, she concluded, she said, she “grew up where [she] was supposed to.”
Mariska opened
A Chronology of Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann’s Enduring Partnership
At the Hope for Depression Research Foundation’s 18th Annual HOPE Luncheon Seminar in November 2024, Mariska talked candidly about what it was like to grow up “in a house of people dealing with the tragedy in their own way” after Jayne passed away.
She clarified, “There was no space to prioritize anyone because there was so much grief.” “We lacked the resources we currently possess to process and comprehend trauma.
Since their 2004 marriage, Mariska and Peter Hermann have three children together: Andrew Nicolas Hermann, born in 2011, Amaya Josephine Hermann, born in 2011, and August Miklos Friedrich, born in 2006.
Mariska directs her first documentary, My Mom Jayne. In the running for the L’Œil d’or (the French term for “The Golden Eye, The Documentary Prize”), the poignant film made its Cannes Film Festival debut on Saturday.
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