Mariska Hargitay Discusses How Playing Olivia Benson Changed Her Life | The View

[Applause] it's so nice to have you back here again you're beautiful girl I am so happy to be here with you ladies hi Marisa she was arresting me like this no she put me away so you were just on the cover of People magazine with your lovely family your husband Peter yeah I understand that you have three children I do one is a biological two are adopted right uh-huh everybody's happy and doing well I hope crazy happy joyful beautiful mariscos mother was the very famous Jane Mansfield who is beautiful kind of bombshell and actress and just really something about you and that's her mom no the baby oh you look like your mom that's your mother that's me I'm not sure what was gonna be a little shoot oh yeah yeah but your mom did pass away when you were only three years old yes pretty sad story really when you think about it there you lose your mother at such a young age did that have anything to do with you adopting children I mean did you want to increase the Fant what was that anything ma'am you know I grew up with I have more siblings there's there's a whole slew of us but I grew up with my two brothers and three was sort of a magic number for us and I had a fantastic stepmother and I just loved and learned very young that families are made so many different ways and I yes from the time I was this big I knew that I wanted to adopt because I felt like I just felt like I might know what to do yeah I just think families are made all different ways and it's been so beautiful and I feel like for me so many times and I have many friends who have adopted and it always seems it was across the board that you that you get the kid that you're supposed to have meant it was meant to be and I just believe that so deeply and my daughter I mean sometimes we should just wish stare at each other she's so self-possessed and she's my teacher they both are but my daughter's like he's so incredibly um she just they teach me it's beautiful present yeah I know stuff and even when she was a baby she would just keep eye contact and I'd be like well the last time you were here we were talking about your cameo in the Taylor Swift video for bad blood yes we found one that's even better from 1984 Oh Millsaps she loves my car [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay would have known that woman would turn out to be a lieutenant Olivia I know we have a lot to talk about today but some other time have me on the show because I'll tell you this is a true story the day that I wrapped that video that night I was arrested and put in jail [Applause] she loved the car fly lube it was that mg listen you roll on SVU got you passionate about the cause of sexual assault and domestic violence and real life what do you hear from fans I have been so blessed and when I started shooting the show started getting a different kind of fan mail most fan mail says you know I love your show can I get an autographed photo and early into the show as soon as it started airing really I started getting letters from survivors disclosing their abuse and many for the first time and telling me I've never told this to anyone but sharing their stories of assault and and running the full gamut and you know in these letters which I was so privileged to received but but also shocked because I didn't know how to respond and I wasn't an expert I was simply an actor on a TV show that had just learned the statistics that were so prevalent that one out of three women will be assaulted by a husband and her boyfriend at some point in their life one out of four women will be assaulted by their 18th birthday one out of six men will be assaulted by their 18th birthday and I just learn these statistics and couldn't believe it and then when I started receiving these letters of abuse I realized I had to respond and so it took a couple years for me to figure out and so I started to put sort of a shape to my response so educated myself and in 2004 I started the joyful Heart Foundation to help survivors reclaim their life the thing that was in 2009 I learned about the backlog of untested rape kits and this was something that absolutely blew my mind I thought my head was going to explode because what I learned from Human Rights Watch was that when a woman has the courage to disclose and goes through a four to six hour obviously often retraumatization evidence collection examination poking and prodding and being treated you know in the most vulnerable moment in the most you know insensitive of ways many times you would assume in this country that the DNA that is collected from that would go straight to the lab and in 2009 Human Rights Watch revealed that there were hundreds of thousands of these kits being stored in police storage facilities and who knows where not being looked at not being looked at thousands well I found out about it in 2009 that there were I believe around 12,000 in Los Angeles well before you continue on this because we're gonna keep you here so you can finish this we're gonna take a break if you have to go to commercial we'll be right back in just a couple of minutes

Channel: The View

Views: 760,952

Rating: 4.9110951 out of 5

Keywords: Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Benson, The View, sexual assault, sexual violence, victims, survivors, hot topics, Joyful Heart Foundation

Id: 57lwI2cvAF8

Length: 7min 27sec (447 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 16 2018