Mariska Hargitay reveals how he was
Mariska Hargitay is finally ready to share a family secret of a lifetime.
In her new documentary “My Mom Jayne”, the star of “Law & Order: Svu” reveals how he learned that the man who raised her, the bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay, was not his biological father.
“He was my everything, my idol. He loved me a lot and knew it,” Hargitay told Vanity Fair. “I also knew something else. I just didn’t know what I knew.”
Mickey raised the future television actor and his brothers after the tragic death of his mother, the Hollywood icon, Jayne Mansfield, in 1967.
Although he worshiped his father, Hargitay said he always felt different from his brothers.
When he was an adult, he learned that Mansfield had divorced Mickey in 1963 and briefly came out with Italian singer Nelson Sardelli before reconciling with his ex -husband months before Hargitay was born in 1964.
But it was not until 20 years old, when someone showed a photo of Sardelli, which everything click, the actor shared.
“It was as if the floor fell from under me,” he says in the movie. “As my infrastructure dissolved.”
Anadolu through Getty Images
She faced Mickey, but when he denied the possibility that she was another person’s daughter, she decided to bury the truth … at least for a while.
Approximately a decade later, at 30 years, Hargitay went to see Sardelli act in Atlantic City. After the show, he appeared.
“I’ve been waiting for 30 years for this moment,” he said, confirming what he had suspected for a long time.
Durable between the new truth and deep loyalty to the man who raised her, Hargitay said he instinctively slid in his alter ego of television.
“I went to fill Olivia Benson on him,” he said. “I thought, ‘I don’t want anything, I don’t need anything about you … I have a dad'”.
Bettmann through Getty images
Reaching an agreement with the truth meant facing the painful reality: “knowing” that I had been “living a lie all my life.”
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Thanks again for your support on the way. We are really grateful for readers like you! His initial support helped us take us here and reinforced our writing room, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you join us once again.
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Over time, he built a relationship with Sardelli and his daughters, obtaining a new understanding of his mother’s decision to reconcile with Hargitay for the good of his children.
“I grew up where I was supposed to do it,” he told Vanity Fair. “And I know everyone made the best decision for me. I am the daughter of Mickey Hargitay, that is not a lie.”
“My Mom Jayne” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and opens in HBO and Max on June 27.