Mariska Hargitay Looks Impossibly Chic with Nearly All Her Hair Chopped Off
The Law & Order: SVU star has rocked many hair lengths over the years. Her pixie-cut era is one of the most iconic.
Diehard Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fans can tell which season of the show they're watching based on Mariska Hargitay's (Olivia Benson) hair. In earlier seasons, Benson's hair was darker and cut short, but as the show progressed, she experimented with lighter highlights and bolder cuts. In the latter half of the series, Hargitay grew her hair out, and nowadays, her SVU character has a signature hairstyle: long, wavy, and chocolate brown.
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Don't get it twisted: Hargitay always looks incredible, but fans have nostalgia for the Emmy winner's shorter hair, as it represents the earlier seasons of SVU. So as the show's 26th season (!) roars on, we're turning the clock all the way back to the '90s and early 2000s, when SVU was in its infancy — and Hargitay had a pixie cut.
Mariska Hargitay's short hair will forever be iconic
Hargitay opened up about her hair evolution to Allure magazine in 2023. “I love to play around and try new looks, but I’ve definitely had some hair crises over the years,” she said. “I had short hair for a while, and then I hated having to grow it out. We didn't have the styling right, and I made some mistakes with the color too. I was trying stuff out and didn't have the experience with hair or the attention to detail that I have today. Now I know immediately what works and what doesn’t, but it took me some time to get there.”
Hargitay fully embraces fans' love for her varying hairstyles throughout SVU. “[My hairsylist] always tells me that people come in and show him a photo of my hair and say, ‘I want this,’ which is so sweet,” Hargitay told Allure. “My fans are so hardcore that they even made a shirt about my hair evolution. It says ‘Benson's Hair’ on it, and it’s so funny. That's when you know your hair's a thing.”
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As Hargitay learned more about her hair, she settled on a longer cut because, as she told Allure, “Longer hair fits my face so well."
She added, "I've learned by now that I’m just better with length. Plus, I love that longer hair makes me feel girly — my husband, [Peter Hermann], and kids love it too.”
