Mariska Hargitay: 'A Man Raped Me In My 30s'

Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay says that, like many of the characters in her NBC procedural, she has been the victim of sexual violence.

"A man raped me in my 30s," Hargitay writes in a new People essay. "It wasn't sexual at all. It was dominance and control. Overpowering control."

The Emmy-winning actress doesn't identify the man she alleges was rapist, saying only "He was a friend. Then he wasn't." She recalls that after she said no, when the man "grabbed me by the arms and held me down," she "went into freeze mode" and "checked out of my body."

Hargitay says that for years afterward, she had a hard time reckoning with the experience. "I couldn't process it. I couldn't believe that it happened. That it could happen," she writes. "So I cut it out. I removed it from my narrative."

In 2004, inspired by her work on the show, she founded the Joyful Heart Foundation. Per the foundation's website, its mission is "to transform society's response to sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse, support survivors' healing, and end this violence forever."

"I was building Joyful Heart on the outside so I could do the work on the inside," she writes. She notes that conversations about the incident with friends eventually helped her to "my own realization. My own reckoning."

She adds that throughout SVU's long run — Season 25 gets underway later this month; Hargitay will turn 60 soon after — "Survivors who've watched the show have told me I've helped them and given them strength. But they're the ones who've been a source of strength for me."

She calls for a change in societal power structures that allow for sexual violence to continue. And she outlines what justice would look like in her case: "For me, I want an acknowledgment and an apology. I'm sorry for what I did to you. I raped you. I am without excuse. That is a beginning. I don't know what is on the other side of it, and it won't undo what happened, but I know it plays a role in how I will work through this."

TVLine has reached out to Hargitay for additional comment.