The details of Meloni’s exit from SVU were almost as opaque as those of Stabler’s exit from the NYPD. Here’s whyChristopher Meloni left Law & Order: SVU and why Elliot Stabler left the Special Victims Unit. Please beware of spoilers beyond this point for Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime!
Christopher Meloni left Law & Order: SVU over a salary dispute
Meloni and Hargitay were reportedly paid the same amount for Law & Order: SVU for the first 12 seasons of the hit series, a victory for equal pay for women. (Reports listed the sums at $400,000 per episode for each star.) However, Meloni’s salary negotiations for Season 13 stalled out: He reportedly wanted a pay increase, but the network wouldn’t budge and allegedly offered $8 million per year (which would have been a pay cut if the $400,000-per episode salary reports were accurate), so he walked. In a 2017 interview on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Meloni said he didn’t regret leaving SVU and confirmed that he knew it was time to leave “when negotiations broke down.”
Why did Elliot Stabler leave the Special Victims Unit after 12 years?
Onscreen, Stabler was never really given a proper farewell. In the Season 12 finale, “Smoked,” a murder victim’s daughter, Jenna Fox, shot and killed three people. Stabler shot Fox to stop her from shooting again. Unfortunately, Stabler’s shot was a fatal one, and the girl died in his arms. Because Meloni left between seasons, his exit was never shown on SVU, only the aftermath: In the Season 13 premiere, it’s revealed that Stabler (who’d had several fatalities on his cases prior to Fox’s) was placed on administrative leave. Benson vehemently defended her partner to then-Captain Cragen, who insisted Stabler go under psychiatric evaluation before returning to the Unit. Stabler refuses, and later, Benson is notified that Stabler filed for retirement from the NYPD. Benson goes into an interrogation room and cries, and that’s basically it.
Christopher Meloni didn’t like how Elliot Stabler left SVU
Meloni wasn’t happy with how Stabler was written off SVU. “How my character left was really unsatisfying, I think," he told The New York Post. “It almost feels that we won’t do one or two [crossover] episodes and move on our merry way. I just think there will always be possibilities there. People will always be hungry to see how we interact and how that dynamic has changed.” Showrunner Warren Leight was also unimpressed with how Stabler left the Special Victims Unit. “In hindsight, NBC, Dick [Wolf], Universal and Chris all know they could have handled that better,” told The Hollywood Reporter. “But I think Chris, over time from what I hear, began to realize that the fans were owed a little more.” “None of the people in the room thought for a second, ‘How will the fans experience this?’” Leight added. “It was a negotiation handled without much empathy on any of the participant’s parts, and I think they all sort of know that now. And there wasn’t much empathy for the fans either. I think everyone probably learned, but you can’t roll the clock back.”
Mariska Hargitay was “devastated” when Chris Meloni left SVU
Meloni’s longtime partner in crime-fighting was heartbroken when he left the series. “I was just so sad, because we started this thing and built it together,” Hargitay told PEOPLE. “And we went through so many milestones and spent so much time together and understood so many things that nobody else could understand.” She added, “I had to do so many mental gymnastics and sort of do a reinvention in my own mind, which of course turned out to be a gift, as any sort of growth is. But I was scared; I was sad.” Meloni sympathized with Hargitay, but not enough to stick around at the time. He explained, “She was left in the familiarity of what we were. And I’m sure there were echoes, constant reminders, everywhere. But for me, it was about how things fell out [with the network]—and the word I’ll use is that it was ‘inelegant.’” He added, however, that he and Hargitay “stayed connected” after he left.
What has Christopher Meloni been in since leaving Law & Order: SVU?
Meloni pursued other projects after his unceremonious exit from SVU, including a star turn in Happy!, as well as roles in Maxx, Veep, Surviving Jack, True Blood, Underground, The Handmaid’s Tale, Man of Steel and Snatched (to name a few!), which he said were all creatively fulfilling for him. “At the end of the day, how it was handled was, ‘Okay, see you later.’ So I went, ‘That’s fine. We’re all big boys and girls here. See you later,’” he recalled to PEOPLE. “And I was off on new adventures and doing what I wanted to do. Telling the stories I wanted to tell. I couldn’t have been happier.” He also noted to The New York Postthat he wanted to pursue more comedic roles, which he did in spades.
Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay were happy to see Benson and Stabler reunite
Hargitay was happy to reunite with Meloni in the Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime crossover because it meant she’d get to work with her buddy again. “In television, when somebody leaves, obviously there’s a grieving period, but the fans never moved on,” Hargitay told PEOPLE. “And I think that is just so incredibly beautiful and so incredibly powerful.” Hargitay said the onscreen reunion was “emotional,” and offscreen even more so. “There was so much shorthand between us,” she said, “which all goes back to the trust we have. He’s always made me feel like I could just jump off the ledge, the cliff, the bridge, and he would catch me, in so many ways, whether it was comedy or acting or friendship.” Meloni, meanwhile, explained it in psych 101 terms: “It was Pavlovian: Ring that bell, and you get right into Stabler and Benson.”
Elliot Stabler came back to the force for Law & Order: Organized Crime, and Chris Meloni is happy about it
Meloni didn’t even know the details of Law & Order: Organized Crime when he started negotiations to do the series. In fact, he thought he was returning for a brief arc on SVU. “My reps thought it was a call to have me come back to SVU to kind of wrap up his story, four episodes of something like that,” Meloni told Variety. “But they just came out of the blue with a new show.” He added, “I think I maybe wanted to be less of a journeyman or a nomad because I’ve been doing that. It’s been great…but after a while you’re like, ‘Let’s look for a home base again for a while.’” As for what made Stabler return, details, thus far, aren’t known beyond that he suffered a “devastating personal loss.” Leight told The Hollywood Reporter podcast, “Throughout the series, we will follow Stabler’s journey to find absolution and rebuild his life, while leading a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.” Leight also hinted that Stabler and his wife, Kathy, may have divorced, and that his son may be in serious trouble.
What did Elliot Stabler do in the 10 years he was gone?
Beware of spoilers for Law & Order: Organized Crime and Law & Order: SVU beyond this point! Stabler had been living in Rome and working (you guessed it!) to investigate and combat sex trafficking and organized crime overseas as New York City Police Department’s international liaison. He returned to New York City for a few reasons, including to testify against suspects from a case he investigated in Puglia, for a department meeting and to speak at a ceremony honoring Benson’s work as a woman in law enforcement. On his way to the ceremony with Kathy, he stepped out of their parked car to take a phone call. While he was gone, a car bomb went off. Benson arrived on the scene and Kathy was hospitalized, but ultimately didn’t make it. After her passing, Stabler revealed to Benson that he and Kathy were “happy” and were together, not divorced. He embarks on a personal mission to avenge Kathy, keep the rest of his family together and fight the organized crime that led to his wife’s slaying. Next, check out the best episodes (so far!) of Law & Order: SVU.
