Be still our shipper hearts! After a lengthy will-they-or-won’t they relationship on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler are endgame, show star Mariska Hargitay has confirmed.
“We’re trying to figure out what to do [on the show]. He is free, and I think he’s got eyes for me,” Hargitay, 57, admitted about the two characters on the Tuesday, January 18, episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, noting that Stabler (Christopher Meloni) is now available after the death of his wife (Isabel Gillies). “But Olivia Benson is hurt! I mean, he left me in a lurch for 10 years. She’s frightened.”
She continued at the time: “The energy’s there. Olivia’s been in love with him for many a year and I think that we are slowly finding our way back to it, but I want to give him the amount of time he needs to grieve Kathy Stabler.”
After host Drew Barrymore said the earth would “shake” when the two characters finally got together after 25 years of teasing, the California native squealed.
Upon SVU’s premiere in September 1999, Benson and Stabler had a purely platonic relationship as they worked together as detectives in New York City. However, many fans eagerly hoped there was something more between the two.
While the former costars costarred on SVU for more than a decade, Meloni, 60, eventually left the show in season 12, which aired in 2011. He later returned to the beloved character in April 2021 with a surprise cameo on SVU, which introduced Stabler’s spinoff, Law & Order: Organized Crime.
After the Runaway Bride actor’s reappearance in the L&O television universe, he and Hargitay made headlines when they shared steamy BTS footage. Meloni shared a snap with the Prince Street alum in August 2021 as the pair looked like they were about to lock lips. He captioned it, “#rehearsing what @Mariska?”
“Are you blushing? It’s getting hot in here,” the Lake Placid actress — who’s been married to Peter Hermann since 2004 — replied, adding a fire emoji.
Several months later, Benson and Stabler’s relationship continued to heat up as the two actors held hands in a November 2021 trailer for a crossover episode.
“Whatever happens, we’re gonna take it one step at a time,” Benson told her former partner in the teaser clip.
While fans — including the 46-year-old Wedding Singer actress — have been impatiently hoping the two characters would get together, the actors have played coy about what could be.
“I think it’s going to be a collaborative effort between both showrunners and Mariska and I to figure it all out,” the Man of Steel actor told Entertainment Tonight in September 2021. “It’s a complicated relationship, so we’ll see.”