Hollywood star-turned-pop singer Reneé Rapp, 25, lit up on Today at the prospect of guest-starring on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But Rapp has one demand: she wants to play Mariska Hargitay’s lover.
Rapp, who starred in The Sex Lives of College Girls and also played Regina George in Tina Fey’s Broadway adaptation of Mean Girls as well as its 2024 movie musical reboot, appeared on Today on Monday as part of her press tour for her sophomore album, Bite Me.
When the self-described SVU super fan was asked as part of Today’s “8 Before 8″ segment if she would ever want to play a role on the long-running NBC procedural, she was quick to say yes—and even had her dream role in mind. “I would be Mariska Hargitay‘s lover,” Rapp replied, adding: “She would be gay, finally.”
Rapp, who came out as lesbian on Saturday Night Live in January, said she has long speculated that Hargitay’s character, Captain Olivia Benson, is gay, and even recalled a scene where Benson asked fellow detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), “Do you ever get a gay vibe from me?”
Rapp insists that Benson is a “liar” for telling Stabler that she is not gay.
But when it comes to romancing Benson, Rapp may have some competition from none other than Meloni himself. The actor, 64, has co-starred with Hargitay, 61, since the show first aired in 1999. Meloni left the cast in 2011 and returned 10 years later, in 2021.
In the show’s 24th season, which aired in 2023, the romantic tiptoeing around their characters reached its tipping point with a near-kiss that left viewers begging for more.
When faced with frustration from fans, Meloni posted to X that he’s f—ing trying” to have their characters seal the deal.
I’m fucking trying https://t.co/qtXyzlqJzm
— Chris Meloni (@Chris_Meloni) July 29, 2025
Hargitay has also been trying to advance Benson’s love life. In January 2022, while appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show, Hargitay admitted that her character has been “in love” with Stabler “for many a year.”
“Chris and I thought it should go one way, and the powers that be didn’t,” she confessed to Variety in 2024.
But in June, Hargitay hinted that a Benson-Stabler coupling could still be in the cards. During an interview with Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy, Hargitay teased that fans could still see their dreams come true: “Maybe on the last episode.”
But even if the “powers that be” never let an onscreen coupling happening, they’ll still be together in spirit. Hargitay says her and Meloni’s characters are “soulmates, in a way.”
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