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All About SVU's Peter Scanavino and His Wife, Lisha Bai
The SVU star is married to an accomplished contemporary artist.
Dedicated detective-turned-ADA Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino) has been charming Law & Order: Special Victims Unit audiences since his Season 16 introduction in 2014, but the actor has been charming his wife, Lisha Bai, for much longer.
As a core member of Captain Olivia Benson's (Mariska Hargitay) team on SVU, fans always love a check-in from Carisi, and his relationship with his former partner Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) remains a highlight. While Carisi is married to Rollins within the Law & Order universe, Scanavino has been happily married to his wife in real life, Lisha Bai, since 2011.
The couple prefers to stay out of the limelight, but Scanavino has provided the occasional sneak peek into their family life over the years.
RELATED: What's Going on with Carisi on SVU Right Now?
Meet Peter Scanavino's wife, Lisha Bai
Scanavino has been married to his wife, contemporary artist Lisha Bai, since July 2011. They have built a beautiful family after spending more than a decade together. In July 2021, Scanavino shared an adorable throwback photo from the beginning of their relationship to celebrate their 10th anniversary. The actor is sporting some serious 2011 vibes in the floppy-haired photo.
"Married ten years today," Scanavino shared on X (formerly Twitter). "Meeting Lisha is the best thing that ever happened to me. Happy anniversary!! @LishaHBai."
Bai is an accomplished mixed-medium artist whose work has been displayed in galleries far and wide; she boasts exhibits in New York City, London, San Francisco, and more and Scanavino is Bai's biggest cheerleader. In December 2019, he encouraged his Instagram followers to "see my darling's work" by visiting Bai's exhibit at NADA in Miami.
In December 2023, Bai debuted her textile piece "Joseph's Room in New York City, a stunning display inspired by her experience as a Korean American growing up in Alabama. According to her website, Bai earned a master's degree in painting and printmaking from Yale University after earning her bachelor's in painting from Washington University in 2001.
Peter Scanavino takes parenting tips from Mariska Hargitay
Like Carisi, Scanavino is a father of three, but luckily, parenting comes much more naturally to the SVU star than it does for his on-screen counterpart. He has quite a few more years as a dad under his belt than Carisi does.
"I like it," Scanavino told People in a November 2024 interview. "I think me personally, I'm a bit more experienced as a father than Carisi, so it's almost kind of nice to revisit that part of myself where you have a young, not a baby anymore, but 2-year-old, 1-year-old that you're dealing with and just remembering what that was like for me, the kind of excitement and fear and, 'Am I doing things correctly?'"
"I think a lot of being a parent is second guessing yourself if you're doing the right thing," he continued. "If you should step in, should you help your child, should you let them figure it out on their own? So I've already done that, and now I get to kind of act it out again with Carisi."
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Hargitay is also a parent to three kids, and she and Scanavino have been navigating parenthood behind the scenes of SVU for many years. As their kids grow older, Scanavino often takes inspiration from the SVU legend, who he reveals is just as amazing of a mom in real life as she is on SVU.
"Mariska's a very playful person. She's totally collaborative, open to whatever, and that's really impressive," Scanavino told People. "But then that also carries on to what she's like as a parent and a friend, open. And that doesn't mean she doesn't have her strong opinions and her viewpoints and all that, but she's completely willing to be open to other points of view and understand and sit there and listen and talk and joke and all that."
"She's a really inquisitive, strong person that's open to all kinds of different things, and I think that's just invaluable as a friend, as a parent, as an actor," the star commended. "And I have a few role models in my life as a parent, and she's definitely one of them."
