The Olivia Benson actress shared some personal news with fans
Mariska Hargitay was almost lost for words when she shared an emotional family update on Tuesday.
The Law & Order: SUV star, who has been on the show for over 25 years, took to social media to share the news of a project very close to her heart that she admitted left her feeling “fulfilled” and “so proud”.
Mariska, 61, has teamed up with HBO on the documentary My Mom Jayne – which she also directed – about her late mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield.
The actress and HBO shared a joint post alongside a throwback photo of Jayne with Mariska as a child.
It read: “Strength in vulnerability. A new HBO Original documentary, #MyMomJayne directed by @TheRealMariskaHargitay, about embracing Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield, the mother she never knew, is streaming on @StreamOnMax this June.”
Mariska then shared a post alongside a sweet black and white photo of her holding her mom’s hand when she was just a toddler.
Captioning the photo, she penned: “I feel grateful, fulfilled and so proud to share this film. I never got to make a movie with my mom, and she never got to make the kind of movies she wanted to make.
“#MyMomJayne is a place of meeting for us, and words fail me to describe how mean ingful it is to tell her story, my own, and ours together.”
Captioning the photo, she penned: “I feel grateful, fulfilled and so proud to share this film. I never got to make a movie with my mom, and she never got to make the kind of movies she wanted to make.
“#MyMomJayne is a place of meeting for us, and words fail me to describe how meaningful it is to tell her story, my own, and ours together.”
Speaking in a statement, Mariska said: “This movie is a labor of love and longing. It’s a search for the mother I never knew, an integration of a part of myself I’d never owned, and a reclaiming of my mother’s story and my own truth.
“I’ve always believed there is strength in vulnerability, and the process of making this film has confirmed that belief like never before.”
Jayne Mansfield death
Mariska was only three years old when, in 1967, her mother, then only 36 years old, died in a car crash in Biloxi, Mississippi.
The Olivia Benson actress, whose father was Mickey Hargitay, was in the car, a 1966 Buick Electra 225, when it crashed head-on at high speed to the back of a tractor trailer, instantly killing her mom along with her attorney Sam Brody and their driver Ronnie Harrison, who was 20 at the time.
Mariska and her brothers, Mickey Jr. and Zoltan, were in the back of the car and escaped with minor injuries.
In a 2018 interview with People magazine, Mariska spoke about losing her mother. “The way I’ve lived with loss is to lean into it,” she began.
“As the saying goes, the only way out is through. I’m not saying it’s easy, and it certainly hasn’t been for me. There’s been a lot of darkness. But on the other side things can be so bright.”
“She was an inspiration; she had this appetite for life, and I think I share that with her,” added Mariska.
During an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in October 2024, Mariska reflected on how turning 60 helped her overcome some of her childhood trauma.
“I think as we age, we step into our power, our focus of what’s important narrows down, and we get time and space back,” she said. “I think that the gift that I have is clarity.”
