Candy corn: you either grab it by the handful or wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot broomstick.
Mariska Hargitay had plenty of support as she made her directorial debut.
The 61-year-old Emmy-winning actress, best known for her role in NBC's “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” premiered her new film “My Mom Jayne” at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 17.
It was an emotional day for Hargitay, who attended the event with her husband and three kids.
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The “Plain Truth” actress walked the red carpet in a floor-length, pink sparkly gown with black opera gloves, while her 12-year-old daughter Amaya Josephine matched in a sparkly black mini dress.
Hargitay’s husband, Peter Hermann, and their two sons, August Miklos Friedrich, 17, and Andrew Nicolas, 12, twinned in matching black-and-white tuxedos.
The colors were an ode to Hargitay’s mother, Jayne Mansfield, whose favorite colors were black and white — though she was often identified with pink throughout her career as a Hollywood sex symbol.
The family of five, who rarely make public appearances together, shared a special moment in the theatre during a five-minute standing ovation from the crowd.
In a clip shared by People, Hargitay hugs her husband before bringing her three kids in for a group hug.
Hargitay and Hermann met in 2002 on the set of “Law & Order” and started dating shortly after, per Us Weekly. The couple tied the knot in 2004 and started raising a family two years later.
They welcomed August in 2006 before adopting Amaya and Andrew in 2011, according to People.
After the outing, Hargitay took to Instagram to share photos from the event, including several black and white snapshots of her and her husband.
“Thank you for being by my side. Now and always. I love you,” she wrote in one of the captions.
“Still basking in the glow of last night’s premiere of #MyMomJayne @cannes.film.festival,” she wrote in a separate post. “And forever basking in the glow of this beautiful love.”
Mariska Hargitay reveals 30-year family secret in new documentary
Hargitay’s directorial debut is one that hits close to home.
The film, “My Mom Jayne,” tells the story and legacy of Hargitay’s mother, Jayne Mansfield — an actor, singer and Hollywood bombshell in the 1950s and early 1960s — nearly 60 years after her death.
Mansfield, who shared three children with Mr. Universe winner Mickey Hargitay, died in a tragic 1967 car accident three years after giving birth to Mariska Hargitay.
In the film, Mariska Hargitay reveals a shocking family secret that was kept from her for 30 years.
The secret was that Mickey Hargitay, the only dad she had ever known, wasn’t her biological father. Her real father was Brazilian-born Italian singer Nelson Sardelli, 90.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, published May 17, Mariska Hargitay opened up about meeting Sardelli for the first time.
“I went full Olivia Benson on him," she said in the interview. "I was like, ‘I don't want anything, I don't need anything from you...I have a dad.'"
Upon meeting, Sardelli told Hargitay that he had “been waiting 30 years for this moment.”
Mariska Hargitay said she struggled with the realization that she had been “living a lie” her entire life, but the revelation didn’t change who she was — or where she came from.
"I grew up where I was supposed to, and I do know that everyone made the best choice for me,” she told Vanity Fair. "I’m Mickey Hargitay’s daughter—that is not a lie."
Mansfield married Mickey Hargitay in 1958, per People, before welcoming two children together — sons Miklós "Mickey" Hargitay, Jr. and Zoltán Hargitay.
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The couple divorced in 1964, shortly after Mariska Hargitay was born.
