“I told my husband, and he said, he looked at me like, ‘Mariska, you said that you were never sexually assaulted. You were,’” Mariska, who emphasized her shock, recalled. “That’s why I understand about denial and dissociating.”
Although it took her time to come to terms with the assault, she explained to host Alex Cooper, “I’m grateful for that part of myself that kept me safe, for that part of myself that said, ‘You’re not ready to deal with it.’”
“There’s no blame,” she added. “We have to support ourselves. We have to be ready. We have to build an infrastructure within ourselves and external support, so that we know that we’ll be heard and that we’ll be understood and that the timing is right.”
The Emmy winner believes that fans likely project Detective Olivia Benson—whom she’s played for over 25 years on SVU—onto her, believing that “it could never happen to her.”
