Mariska Hargitay is opening up about forgiving her dad — when she found he wasn’t her organic father in spite of everything.
The Regulation & Order: SVU actress is certainly one of 5 kids late Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield had earlier than her loss of life in 1967, when her daughter was three years outdated, and within the automotive crash that killed her mom.
Up till she was in her twenties, Mariska believed Jayne’s husband Mickey Hargitay was her father, and it wasn’t till the discharge of her directorial debut, a documentary about her mother titled My Mother Jayne launched in 2025, that she revealed it was the truth is Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli.
Jayne and Mickey, who had been married from 1958 to 1964, in 1957 (Getty)
Talking on the Hoda Kotb podcast Making Area, Mariska recalled studying Nelson was her organic father — she suspected it after a fan of her mom’s confirmed her a photograph of him — and confessed: “I used to be so indignant and felt betrayed.”
“I confronted my dad and he denied it,” she continued, remembering her repeatedly questioning him on why he by no means instructed her.
“He goes, ‘What are you speaking about?! You look precisely like my father. You might be my daughter. You might be my daughter,'” she stated.
Mickey handed away at 80 in 2006 (Getty)
“And it was so stunning, now,” Mariska added, explaining: “As a result of I perceive. He was additionally in a lot ache. That was the day I grew to become an grownup. As a result of I liked him a lot, that I stated, ‘We’re good.'”
“We needn’t speak about it anymore, as a result of I felt like he was in additional ache than I used to be,” she recalled pondering. “But in addition, I used to be his daughter, and that is how he noticed it, and that was his fact.”
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“Two issues will be true directly. It was extraordinary, however I am the one which needed to be taught that, not him,” she maintained, noting that each Mickey and Nelson had “an understanding.”
Jayne and Nelson (Alamy Inventory Photograph)
“My dad Mickey stated to Nelson, ‘You do not have to inform me who the daddy of this child was,’ as a result of Mickey knew. And Nelson stated, ‘You are the daddy of this child, since you’re the one which wakes up in the course of the night time along with her, you are the one who’s all the time there for her, and that is the reality,'” Mariska additional shared.
Nelson in Las Vegas in 2024 (Getty Pictures)
Some years after discovering Nelson was her father, Mariska went to go to him in Atlantic Metropolis, New Jersey, the place he was performing on the time. She instructed Self-importance Truthful of the encounter: “I went full Olivia Benson on him,” referring to her Regulation & Order: SVU character. “I used to be like, ‘I do not need something, I do not want something from you… I’ve a dad’ … There was one thing about loyalty. I wished to be loyal to Mickey.'”
Revealing Nelson’s personal response — the 2 seem to have an amicable relationship and he was featured in My Mother Jayne — Mariska stated he burst into tears, and instructed her: “I have been ready 30 years for this second.”
