Christopher Meloni Shares His Ideal Ending For Benson and Stabler—and Why He Thinks Their Relationship Is So Sexy (Exclusive)
You know them. You love them. They’re the television world’s longest-running Will They, Won’t They.
For more than two decades, Christopher Meloni’s Elliot Stabler and Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson have been busting perps and fighting crime on NBC’s Law & Order franchise. They’ve also got a lot of chemistry, and Meloni, who is part of PEOPLE’s 2025 Sexiest Man Alive issue, knows it.
So we had to ask: What’s the sexiest part of the “EO” (Elliot and Olivia, as fans have dubbed them) relationship?
“Gosh. They know each other in an unspoken way, and I think it’s the depth of their friendship,” Meloni, 64, says. “And they’ve made these stabs or these attempts at making this thing another thing…”
Meloni is, of course, referencing the infamous near kiss and the (more than one) “Love you” that Stabler has thrown Benson’s way — the most recent of which happened during the season 27 premiere of SVU earlier this fall.
“For Benson and Stabler to get together, it’s hard! Hard,” Meloni says, immediately erupting into laughter at his unintended innuendo. “Am I blushing?”
But, after a little insistence that anything is possible if given enough time, Meloni acquiesces.
“Oh, I have the energy, just not the time,” he insists, eyebrows wagging.
All kidding aside, however, the season actor gets serious when asked what his ideal ending for Stabler would be, if he could write it himself.
“Some conclusion to Benson and Stabler,” he says thoughtfully. “I think both characters, Stabler and Benson, should ride off into the sunset.”
Season 5 of Organized Crime is currently airing on NBC and can be streamed on Peacock. Meloni has been playing Stabler since first landing the role in 1999 opposite Hargitay.
After departing SVU in 2011, he reprised the character in 2021 for the Organized Crime spinoff series.
“Organized Crime Stabler is sexier,” Meloni says. “There’s a certain fine wine quality to him.”
In fact, Meloni says he’s always had a vision for the character — dating all the way back to 1999.
“When I got the part, I thought after reading the script, ‘Wow. This is a really stressful job,’ because the bulk of what you’re dealing with are women and children. So, I asked [creator] Dick Wolf if I could have four children instead of three. I gave Elliot what I had built in my head. The first part of which was a girlfriend who got knocked up, so I had to marry her to make it legitimate because I’m a good Catholic and I loved her,” he says. “Then the last two kids weren’t planned, and they’re twins! I found it funny, but I also went, ‘Man, this is… [a lot].’ I kept wanting to dollop on top of Stabler. He’s a guy who handles pressure.”
Notably, Stabler ended up with five children by the time Meloni departed the show in 2011. That, er, wasn’t’ part of his plan.
“No. No,” Meloni asserts with a laugh. “I wanted to stop the whole damn thing at four.”
