Law & Order: SVU 25th Season Party

Isabel at Edge at Hudson Yards on January 16, 2024 to celebrate Law & Order: Special Victims Unit's 25th season.

For more photos, visit Enchanting Isabel Gillies Photo Gallery

Happens Every Day Scrapbook

Photographed by Jason McDonald 

Books We Like

NPR.org; March 17, 2009, by Maureen Corrigan

I swear to you, this really happened: Two weeks ago, I was sitting around on a Saturday night, just me and the dog. I didn't feel like reading any of the books I was supposed to be reading, so I began rooting through my pile of new review books. One slim volume caught my eye, initially, because of its title: Happens Every Day, a memoir by Isabel Gillies. "What happens every day?" I wondered. And, so I started reading. I couldn't put the book down and by the time my husband came home late that night from a business trip, I'd finished it. I grunted, "Welcome home," and went up to bed, drained.

The next morning over breakfast, my husband looked up from the newspapers and announced, "I finished a whole book last night."

"So did I!" I said. You see the punch line coming: He'd picked up Gillies' memoir from the table where I'd left it and he couldn't put it down either.

Maybe it's a bit ominous that we both were transfixed by this account of a marriage abruptly falling apart, although certainly we bonded all that morning by trying to figure out why Gillies' memoir is so disarming, especially given that she's not a writer. But therein lies her charm. When Gillies, for instance, starts reminiscing about the restored Victorian house she and her husband and her two little boys lived in in Ohio and then just gives up after a few sentences and says: "I will never be able to write how great it was," you smile. You're on her side.

That amateurish snort of frustration with words not only gives Gillies' story the ring of truth, but it also ironically conveys what a polished description might not: that this was one fantastic house! Similarly, as Gillies tackles her main subject — the sudden disintegration of her marriage — you feel, as a reader, as though you're sitting with a good friend over a pitcher of margaritas, listening to her, tearfully, digressively, even ditzily describe how her husband — whom she knew since they were both children spending summers on an island in Maine — turned into a pod person practically overnight. I'll fess up to the fact that Gillies' beauty — she was on the cover of Seventeen Magazine, and she had a couple of dates with Mick Jagger — adds a pinch of schadenfreude here for the rest of us mortals. Even beautiful people get dumped! And, it's a double bonus that this whole sad story takes place within the fenced-in groves of academe and that Gillies then-husband is a professor poet (think "Heathcliff with an earring," she tells us). It's always fascinating to read about academics acting on their ids rather than their intellects.

The gist of Gillies' tale is this: her husband, whom she calls here by the pseudonym "Josiah," wins the academic jackpot: a tenured teaching position at Oberlin College. (Gillies, by the way, offers very funny, outsider takes on the preciousness of artsy colleges like Oberlin, describing it as a school where all the students "play an instrument well" and "know how to address [transgendered people].") Gillies gave up her acting job in New York and the young family decamped to Ohio where, after a year, they bought that great house. Within one month of moving in, Josiah fell head over heels for a woman Gillies calls "Sylvia," the "new hire" in his department, a half-French, Audrey Hepburn look-alike whom Gillies had befriended. Another entrancing aspect of this painful story, as Gillies tells it, is that Josiah refuses to discuss his obvious infatuation with Sylvia. This is a man who's a poet, whose brilliant mind one friend likened to "a cathedral" and, yet, in this crucial situation where his marriage and family are at stake, he acts like 90 percent of the guys out there and won't talk about his feelings. Gillies, of course, desperately wants a story to explain why her life is upended. Finally, months after they separate, he calls Gillies and announces that he and Sylvia are, indeed, a couple.

I know we're only getting one side of the break-up here, but unless she's a much more manipulative writer than I'm giving her credit for, Gillies comes off as a genuinely peppy, uncomplicated woman. She even admits that she doesn't "really like poetry . . . [because she] just [doesn't] get it," which, obviously, might have created problems with Josiah the bard. For those readers who've endured similar seismic shifts of the heart, Happens Every Day will offer the comfort of solidarity. For the rest of us who've been, so far, spared, it makes for compulsive and, frankly, chilling late-night reading.

Acclaimed breakup memoir a love letter to Oberlin

The Chronicle-Telegram; March 29, 2009, by Cindy Leise 

OBERLIN — A newly published memoir by Isabel Gillies, who plays the wife of lead Detective Elliot Stabler on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” is a love poem to Oberlin — in the saddest of ways. You can feel her delight as Gillies — a tall, blond, New York City WASP who once graced the cover of Seventeen magazine and dated Mick Jagger — moves to Oberlin in 2004. Her handsome, brilliant husband, who previously taught at Harvard University, has snared a tenured poetry job in the English department of Oberlin College. By the next fall, they have settled in with their two boys, ages 1 and 3. They renovate a big 1877 brick house on Elm Street that they nickname “Bricky,” and Gillies starts her own job as an adjunct professor of acting. But five weeks after moving into their dream home, her husband dumps her for a married female professor who comes to Oberlin to teach 18th-century English literature. Gillies, who had befriended the woman, is dumfounded. The blood-letting begins.

There’s weeping, cajoling, spying and attempts to confirm the presumed affair. Gillies confronts her competition — whom she describes alternately as similar to Audrey Hepburn, Winona Rider or Natalie Portman. After returning home, she discovers her husband has learned about the confrontation and is furious. The entire breakup — from start to finish — occurs between October and December, at the time the nation was consumed with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Their own household was torn apart, Gillies writes, but “(t)his mess we had made ourselves.” Gillies’ “Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story” was published Tuesday by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc. The tale — which uses aliases for her ex and the professor he eventually married — is a featured selection at 7,000 Starbucks nationwide. Gillies, 39, calls her book a story of “loving your life even when it’s falling apart.”

Getting good reviews

-O, The Oprah Magazine called Gillies’ book “a smart, rueful memoir of love, betrayal, and survival.”

-David Auburn, Pulitzer Prize-wining author of “Proof,” wrote that Gillies “tells the story of the breakup of her ‘perfect’ marriage with astonishing honesty, sharp humor, and not a shred of self-pity. This is a memoir that reads like a gripping mystery and a moving coming-of-age tale.”

-Library Journal called the book “the nonfiction equivalent of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn … Highly recommended.”

Gillies was featured Wednesday on “The Today Show.”

-Vogue featured her writing in the Up Front feature in its February issue and Glamour called her book a “must read for March.”

-Gossipy, direct and full of mentions of Lorain County, the 261 pages can be devoured in a night.

‘Taking the Reader with Me’

In a telephone interview with The Chronicle-Telegram, Gillies said her sudden breakup was crushing, and she felt compelled to write about it. She said she has already gotten feedback from women whose husbands have left them, and she hopes they can find solace in the book. “It’s easy to be taken under by it,” Gillies said. All the hoopla about the book is “a little overwhelming,” she said. Any kind of artistic process is cathartic, but that’s not why she wrote the memoir, she said. Instead, it was probably her friends who urged her on, saying she wrote great e-mails and the topic was compelling. She began writing at the New York Society Library and discovered she liked doing it. “It kind of reads like a whodunit,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out what happened, and I’m taking the reader with me.” While she has many fond memories of Oberlin, she said it was important to leave as soon as possible following the breakup. “I found the anger was really paralyzing,” she said. But Gillies has moved on, and she seems delighted with where life has taken her. Since October 2007, she has been married to Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Lattman, whom she describes in the book as “the love of my life.” They are raising her two sons and his daughter, and Gillies is working on another book. The key to happiness is “getting with the program about what’s going on with your life,” she said. “If your kids are healthy and you are healthy and things are all good, then it’s greedy to do anything else than try to stay positive about where you are,” she said.

'Happens Every Day' memoir puts Oberlin on the infidelity map

Cleveland.com; March 29, 2009, by Karen R. Long

Five years ago, when Manhattan actress Isabel Gillies landed in Oberlin, she hit upon selling $10 bunches of wildflowers at the farmers market as a way to meet people and introduce herself.

She has everyone's attention now.

"Happens Every Day" is Gillies' new memoir about living in one of Oberlin's grandest brick homes, married to the handsomest professor - "He was Heathcliff with an earring" - only to have him unceremoniously dump her and their toddler sons for the new instructor in 18th-century English literature.

Starbucks has singled out Gillies' book to promote in its 7,000 stores, praising it as a story about "loving your life even when it's falling apart." Georgetown University critic Maureen Corrigan gave it a rave on National Public Radio, saying first she, then her husband, consumed it in a single sitting.

And Gillies, who plays a small recurring part on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" as Lt. Stabler's wife, scored four coveted minutes of national airtime Wednesday on the "Today" show, where she described her writing debut, started on her BlackBerry.

"Suddenly, it's the talk of the town," said Tom Oates, assistant manager of the Oberlin College bookstore. "They're selling very quickly."

Gillies, 39, has written a chatty, slightly goofy roman à clef, with the keys left under the mat for pretty much anyone living in Oberlin. She gives her ex-husband the name of Josiah Robinson on these pages, gushing that he "was like Indiana Jones. I always imagined that his students (male and female) might write 'I love you' on their eyelids and bat them at him during his class."

He is, in actuality, Oberlin's poetry professor, DeSales Harrison. Asked if he had read "Happens Every Day," in which he berates Gillies for a mess of Cheerios left under their boys' car seats, Harrison politely and promptly e-mailed, "I would love to help you with your story, but I have found that the best policy is to refrain from commenting. I hope you understand."

Gillies, who at age 14 posed on the cover of Seventeen magazine and says she twice dated Mick Jagger, describes herself, her ex and his new wife as all friends now.

"I always felt so insecure out there because I felt like the blond actress chick who was dragged along to the party by my smarty-pants husband," she said in a telephone interview from Manhattan. "But I was pretty. And I could be funny. . . And then I married a very, very smart person -- and I was surrounded by people with all these advanced degrees so I'd fall into this blond shtick."

Little DeSales and young Isabel sailed together as children near their families' summer homes in Maine; their adult romance ignited at his sister's wedding. They married, and moved to Oberlin with two cherubic, tow-headed boys, in time for Gillies to campaign for John Kerry.

The family sparked interest when it spent more than $300,000 for a stately house on Elm Street, a steal to the couple -- "we were both pretty big WASPs" -- but much more money than college regulars could remember a new English professor affording.

"We didn't just stay in our cushy, too expensive New York life with our friends, we went out like Earnest Shackleton on the Endurance and forged new territory," Gillies writes of moving to Ohio. "I was proud of us."

She did weep, however, because her sons seemed doomed to becoming Midwesterners, but perked up when she met the newly hired English instructor, "Sylvia" in print, but professor Laura Baudot in person.

"She wore all sorts of great designer clothes, which again I appreciated," Gillies writes. "In New York everybody looks great and is well dressed, but seeing someone in Ohio wearing Marc Jacobs is like spotting an owl in Central Park. Rare."

Gillies writes that her new buddy came up with the title of her memoir. On page 177, the author describes fearfully whispering her disbelief that a man might abandon his perfect little sons. "And then in her half-French accent Sylvia said the most dumbfounding thing, 'It happens every day.' "

No other woman reacted so coldly, Gillies writes. Baudot did not respond to requests for her side of the story.

Eventually, Baudot and Harrison married. Gillies moved back to New York and married a Wall Street Journal reporter. The boys are now age 7 and 4. Their mother said she doesn't expect them to read "Happens Every Day" now, but that openness is one of her signature traits.

"I've put my emotions, raw, out there, for national television," Gillies said. "I don't think this is so different. I don't think any one would bat an eye if I wrote a song."

She is not, however, planning a reading in Oberlin.

Idyllic marriage is torn asunder

Former 'Law & Order' actress details its painful collapse in Oberlin setting

Cox Newspapers; May 10, 2009, by Scott Eyman

Isabel Gillies walked away from her job as an actress on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit to move to Oberlin and be a faculty wife.

Her husband was a poetry professor, they had two sons, and she was crazy in love with her family and the idea of raising her kids in a stress-free environment.

Gillies and her husband bought a house, installed new appliances and a new heating system. She didn't miss New York, and loved her new home, for Oberlin has a vibe all its own. It's farmland, with plenty of the spectacular cloud formations of the Midwest, what the natives call ''God light,'' when the sun streams through, providing some spectacular lighting effects.

And then there are the people. ''Oberlin students are named Zack or Violet,'' Gillies writes. ''They know transgendered people and how to address them, never making a mistake. I am forever getting confused on that account. Sometimes it is very hard to tell what gender these kids are, and I supposed that is the point.''

Gillies and her husband fit right in. Once, a few generations ago, their respective families had some money, but now they're down to their last Maine vacation house. They know fine things, but don't have a lot of them.

A month after establishing an idyllic existence, Gillies' husband dumps his family for a new member of the faculty, a professor of 18th-century English literature. The Other Woman — Gillies calls her Sylvia and her husband Josiah, even though those aren't their names, and a few minutes on Google will turn up the real ones — has looks somewhere between Audrey Hepburn and Winona Ryder, and a vaguely French accent. She's diametrically opposite Gillies, who is blond and Nordic.

''Happens every day,'' is what the other woman tells Gillies when the soon-to-be ex-wife asks how this could be happening to her. True, but it doesn't happen every day to Isabel Gillies, and Happens Every Day is her story of her marriage and unwanted divorce.

Gillies' book got me thinking about a batch of divorces I've been in proximity to the last several years. (Have you noticed that divorces, like death, often come in bunches?) They all began with affairs that nobody would admit existed; none of the betrayed spouses ever saw it coming; all went through emotional ravages, including a period of bouncing-off-the-walls craziness, accompanied by the well-known divorce weight-loss program.

Oh, one other thing: The adulterous spouse always tries to justify his or her behavior, which only proves that very few people will cop to being the incompetent architects of their own life.

In the end, everybody survives, but at a cost I can only imagine, and there tends to be a certain residual bitterness at the bottom of the cup.

Gillies' experience was very similar. She develops an interest in reality TV and a heretofore unexpected sympathy for Jennifer Aniston. And she cunningly compares her ravaged life with two small children to the life of people in the movies who are having the same experience.

''In the movies, when husbands or wives suddenly announce that they are leaving the marriage, life seems to stop suddenly to make room . . . The jilted woman or man has endless time to wallow in bed for days crying or drinking. That actress never gets out of her nightgown, except to take long meaningful walks through Central Park. I needed to be in that movie.''

So what makes Happens Every Day worth reading?

Gillies is an actress by profession, and actors are trained to be specific, so she's got a great eye. She's also a good writer:

''I went upstairs to where the boys were sleeping in their rooms and sat in the hallway equidistant between them. I took in a long steady deep breath and when I couldn't take in any more, I held it. I think I held my breath for the next two months.''

Gillies book is not a diatribe, and only occasionally a cri de couer. Mainly, it's a surgical reconstruction of her marriage's sudden collapse, and it's utterly honest and painful. Despite the fact that her predominant state throughout the book is pain, Gillies is pretty good company, mainly because she's got a good sense of humor, although not about Sylvia.

It's a tart book, a universal book, which is to say completely human, and eminently worth reading for both men and women.

A Must-Read and its Lesson in Letting Go

Columbia Catholic Examiner; May 24, 2009, by Gina LeVeque

Last week, I finished a book, and have not been able to stop thinking about it.  The title is Happens Every Day, and to be honest, not since devouring a copy of Judy Blume’s Forever in one sitting when I was thirteen years old have I been so consumed with a book as I have with Isabel Gillies’ memoir about the disintegration of her marriage.   

Her story is transfixing from the start.  She describes falling in love with her husband, a handsome, intense academic whom she met when they were both children spending their summers in Maine.  They fall in love, get married, and then Gillies leaves her acting job in the role of Detective Stabler’s wife on Law & Order SVU to move to Ohio when her husband gets a teaching position as a poetry professor at Oberlin College.  From the outside, Gillies is a woman who appears to have it all: She’s beautiful, (Gillies was a Seventeen Magazine cover girl and went out with Mick Jagger a few times) madly in love with her husband, has two little boys whom she adores and has recently moved into her dream house which she lovingly decorates with William Morris wallpaper and builds a window seat in the kitchen.  Everything seems to be going “according to plan,” that is, until her husband’s English department hires a new literature professor, a woman described as part Winona Ryder part Audrey Hepburn.  Within one month, her husband has fallen head over heels in love for this colleague.  Happens Every Day is Isabel Gillies’ brutally honest account of how it all unfolded.  

The author is not a writer in the traditional sense, but she definitely has the gift of conversation in spades, and that’s what this book is. Reading it feels like an intimate conversation with a close friend who is confiding in you about her confusion, sadness, anxiety and heartbreak.  As her marriage is crumbling, the author tries desperately to make her husband NOT leave her.  She makes up excuses to see him at the office, adjusts her daily routine so as to “accidently” run into him, and cajoles him into spending more time with her.  It’s no use, and painful to read, as her husband is already emotionally checked out. 

Many people; consciously or unconsciously have a plan of how life is supposed to turn out.  The author is no exception, and in part, this fuels her initial resistance to letting go.  Without question, experiencing her husband leaving her for another woman was not part of the plan.  However, once she does let go, she joyfully makes the discovery that God has another, better plan up His sleeve.  For Catholics, St. Francis personifies the grace of being able to let go.  He fully embraced a spirit of detachment in the belief that in this way, he was freer to devote himself entirely to God.  In the struggle to let go, we must remember the words of Jesus that with God all things are possible.  Like Gillies, there comes a time in everyone’s life when we are faced with the challenge of letting go.  This is so difficult, but we have to ask ourselves, “What am I holding onto that is holding me back and perhaps keeping me from realizing God’s true plan for my life?”   

Meeting the challenge to let go ultimately opens the way for God’s promises to be fulfilled.  Anyone struggling with this can find inspiration in Gillies’ tale.  Resolving to “pull up her socks,” take the high road and just put one foot in front of the other, she emerges on the other side, stronger, more at peace and with her spirit, her dignity and her sense of humor fully intact.  And like St. Francis, she is also more free.

Chris Meloni’s fake SVU wife gets real-life revenge 

Time Out Kids New York; June 5, 2009

Think Det. Elliot Stabler’s on-again, off-again relationship with his wife, Kathy, on SVU is rocky? It’s a cakewalk compared with that actress’s real-life first marriage. After playing the dutiful wife both onscreen and off for a number of years, native New Yorker Isabel Gillies packed up her two young sons and left a promising acting career to follow her husband, professor DeSales Harrison, to Oberlin. A few months later, he dumped her, and she was forced to pick up the pieces of her life. This year, she got even: She published the memoir Happens Every Day about the experience, and it hit the New York Times bestseller list. Want to know what makes her revenge even sweeter? She met another divorcee, they fell in love and now live together with their blended family. Time Out Kids recently interviewed the actor-cum-author about single parenting in the city, her career plans and why her ex shouldn’t stop worrying…yet.

Memoirs: The other sides of the story

When you’re the heel in someone else’s uplifting life tale

New York Post December 6, 2009, by Maureen Callahan 

To be written about in the memoir of another — to become a fully animated character living in another person’s narrative, rendered in a possibly unrecognizable light — is perhaps one of the most surreal experiences ever, and one curiously unexamined. What of these supporting players, who’ve made the memoirist’s work possible, often without prior consent? What becomes of their lives, once private, now irrevocably public? How does one move about in the world if they’ve been revealed — or, to be fair, depicted — as a drunk, a cheater, a cuckold, a bad parent, a sexual fetishist, in a highly publicized book sitting in the window at Barnes & Noble?

    “In some sense, it feels so strange and like nothing at all,” says DeSales Harrison. “You wake up and you feel like someone’s painted you blue, and everyone knows.”

Harrison is a poetry professor at Oberlin. Since March, however, he has been widely known as the ex-husband of “Law & Order” actress Isabel Gillies, who depicted Harrison as a longstanding amoral adulterer in her memoir “Happens Every Day.” Harrison did not see the book before publication, which was heralded with a piece in Vogue and shelf space at Starbucks. Though Gillies changed both Harrison’s name and that of the other woman (they are now married), he felt these were “minor attempts” at preserving his privacy.

    Until now, he says, “my policy and my wife’s has been to do and say nothing. But there’s something painful about playing back a voicemail from a complete stranger saying, ‘Professor Harrison, you’re an assh - - -!’”

    He read the book, he says, “in short bursts, until I couldn’t take it anymore, and then all at once, masochistically.” His colleagues have read the book, as has his family, who “were appalled” and refer to it as “unnecessary violence.” He is concerned about the impact the book will have on his and Gillies’ children.

    “But if the insides [of the marriage] Isabel described were close to what I experienced, I would’ve felt more exposed,” Harrison says. He slips and refers to the memoir as a novel before correcting himself. “I feel weirdly re-cast in a situation that doesn’t resemble the complexity I would have described. But people — especially complete strangers — treat you as though you are not even yourself, but this version of someone’s imagination.”

    Anecdotally at least, Harrison is unusual: He is a literary antagonist who has read the entire screed against him. Andre Agassi’s father, depicted in Agassi’s new memoir “Open” as a tyrant and a bully, has said he will not read the book. Jack Canfield, author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and father of memoirist Oran, who chronicled his drug addiction in “Long Past Stopping,” declined The Post’s request for comment, as did Michael Cooper, the unnamed ex-husband who made Liz Gilbert so miserable in her memoir, “Eat, Pray, Love.” (Cooper is currently working on a rebuttal memoir — an emergent subgenre — called “Displaced.” It chronicles his spiritual journey of self-discovery through the Middle East.)

Photographed by Robert Caplin 

How Divorce Lost Its Groove

The New York Times (edit only Isabel Gillies content); June 17, 2011, by Pamela Paul

That does not necessarily make divorced motherhood any easier.

“I spent an enormous amount of energy making everything friendly and loving with my ex and his wife,” said Isabel Gillies, an actress who is following up her divorce memoir, “Happens Every Day,” with a book about divorce’s aftermath, “A Year and Six Seconds.” When her ex-husband visits their children in Manhattan from Ohio, he and his wife stay in Ms. Gillies’s apartment and she moves out. “It’s a bit more seamless than it was in the ’70s,” she said. “Instead of the kids back and forthing, we’re the ones who maneuver.”

Enter the latchkey moms. 

Law & Order: SVU Scrapbook

Excerpts from interviews and articles that focus on Isabel Gillies and her character from various news articles from magazines and the internet.

TV Guide August 2006- Christopher Meloni preps for the Emmys

TV Guide: What's up for Stabler this season?

Meloni: He has to deal with a new partner [played by] Connie Nielsen. And Mariska and I have to figure out who we are and what we are and where we are in our professional relationship. Stabler's wife comes back in the picture a little bit. That's been fun, and...weird.

TV Guide: That's interesting, considering she hasn't been in your life for a season. In what way does she come back into Stabler's life?

Meloni: She and I have to figure out who we are, what we are and where we are in our personal relationship. [Laughs]

TV Guide: Here are three gorgeous women trying to figure out their relationships with you. What's up with that?

Meloni: Damn, baby. It's about time I got a little bit of this action!

TV Guide: What kind of surprises can we expect?

Meloni: That's a question for [executive producer] Neal [Baer]. But there's a lot of room to play. We were very happy with what was happening between my wife and I, so we decided to go with that.

TV Guide: You might get back with her?

Meloni: I don't know what the dynamics are, but she'll play a little larger role in my life, yeah

TV Guide September 2006- Fall Preview

Where We Left Off: Elliot Stabler found himself estranged from both his partner Detective Olivia Benson and his wife, Kathy.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E? [Mariska] Hargitay, who gave birth to a son in June, will appear in the new season’s first episode (filmed last January) but won’t be back until around episode 9. Her character’s absence- she ditched sex crimes for computer cons- will allow plenty of time for the show to take a closer look at the Stabler family strife. “We’re not even clear as to who wants the divorce and why,” says Meloni of the confusion around the troubled marriage.

Un-Stabler: Season 8 will find Stabler questioning his passionate approach to work. “I think he always felt the emotional wake of his estrangement from the two most important women in his life. The character finds that rage starts eating him apart.” Executive producer Neal Baer offers cryptically, “something profound happens to him.”

Is it getting hot in here? While Benson’s away, Stabler will be teamed up for 6 episodes with Warrants officer, Dani Beck, played by Connie Nielson. “SVU goes places it’s never been before,” Baer says. Adds Meloni, “Sparks fly.” Excuse us? “I think my character is having a difficult time with where to place his emotions these days,” the actor explains.

TV Guide February 2007- SVU’s Expecting News

…Although the cases they work are still the series’ hook, their soap-opera-like personal sagas, Stabler’s unstable home life…have been stealing the focus of late…There certainly are no plans for them [Stabler and Benson] to get together anything soon, particularly since Stabler is trying to reconcile with Kathy, his estranged wife. 

TV Guide April 2007- Q&A with Michael Ausiello

Please, for the love of God, tell me a little more on the SVU baby bombshell? I know you dwindle it down to Dani, Olivia, or Kathy, but can’t you give us a little more information?

The baby will be conceived on May 8th

TV Guide May 2007- Q&A with Christopher Meloni

Det. Elliot Stabler's sexy, complicated, intense roots can be found in

Christopher Meloni's early guest roles on Homicide: Life on the Street and NYPD Blue, and even in his boundary-busting portrayal of a bisexual killer on OZ. It's all on display tonight in a strong Law & Order: SVU episode that takes Stabler on an emotional, twist-filled journey.

Tonight, Nip/Tuck's Dylan Walsh plays a married father, possibly a CIA agent, and a suspect in a young woman's murder. Why is Stabler so emotionally involved in this case?

Meloni: You see a guy who's outwardly a family man like Elliot, who has everything going for him, but this guy's living a double life. He has a mistress on the side and the pressure leads to horrible [decisions]. Elliot is estranged from his wife and this case goes to the heart of how easily everything can be taken away from you.

Which leads to something rarely seen on L&O - a hot love scene in which, shades of Oz, you’re pretty much exposed? Did you ask for that?

Meloni: No, please write down I never begged for the beefcake. I will say that when I [read the script], I had a very broad smile on my face. It hasn't been seen in this venue, so I was up for it.

His estranged wife is his romantic partner. Does that lead to a reconciliation? We hear there's a major development.

Meloni: I can't divulge that. What's great about that scene is that it was painful, amid not only the wreckage of our marriage, but what I am dealing with. It spoke volume far beyond my bare ass.

TV Guide May 2007- Q&A about the finale and future of returning TV shows

On Law & Order: SVU, will Elliot move back home with Kathy and the kids now that she's pregnant?

Executive Producer Neal Baer says: Earlier in the season, in the episode "Burned"- in which a husband and wife kept doing more and more terrible things to each other- Elliot [Christopher Meloni] thought about going back to Kathy [Isabel Gillies]. He didn't want to be that kind of person- he wanted the safety and comfort of home. But he just wasn't able to take the final step, because he's so tortured by the work he does. It took a cataclysmic case where a family was destroyed for him to decide to make the move back. When Dylan Walsh's character murdered his wife and children in "Annihilated", it brought home to Elliot how things can change in an instant and made him realize how much he loved his wife and family. In the finale, he found out that Kathy's pregnant. His kids range from age 15 to 22, so next season he's going to have to learn how to be a father to a child again, as well as a husband.

TV Guide 2007- Fall Preview

Ausiello’s Spoilers

…also, Stabler is officially back playing house with his pregnant ex, Kathy, and their eldest daughter is officially TV’s most annoying teen.

(correction note: their second eldest daughter)

Where We Left Off: Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) learned his estranged wife Kathy (Isabel Gillies) was pregnant.

What’s next: Stabler moves back home… In the premiere, Cynthia Nixon plays an archeologist with six personalities- shouldn’t she have eight?- who kidnaps her own baby and threatens Stabler’s family.

TV Guide April 2008- SVU Storms Back!

Meanwhile, Stabler is back with his wife and kids, including a new baby. "Elliot is going to be dealing with his 17-year-old, who is now a problem child," Meloni says. "He has gone to the dark place with his rage, and I think having nearly lost his family, his wife, his new baby, he sees life through different eyes."

E! Online Watch with Kirsten Spring 2009

Is there any chance we will ever see any Stabler-Benson action on SVU?

Is it just us or does it seems like that sorta-relationship has been teased for the past 10 seasons? Unfortunately for you EO fans there aren’t any plans for a future relationship. Showrunner Neal Baer tells us that Stabler’s rocky marriage is finally on an upswing and that some of the Stabler clan is heading back to SVU. “We might be seeing a family member again before the end of the year”. As far as Olivia and Elliot go, Neal is really playing up the success of their partnership. “I don’t think any show has gone on as long as SVU with the same partners. Mariska and Chris have been on the show together for 10 years.”

Telestar (French) with Chris Meloni March 2010

When will there be a love story between Stabler and Benson?

Meloni: It would be a bad idea. This destroys the credibility of our characters. Elliot is married and has five children. When it was mentioned that there was going to be a divorce, the viewers did not like it. So if he was banging his partner, it would become totally unacceptable!

TV Guide May 2011- Ask the Editors

An Orderly Marriage-

Help! I watch Law & Order: SVU new episodes and reruns and I’m not sure if Stabler’s divorced, reconciled, or what right now?

“Elliot and his wife are currently together”, says a show rep. The Stablers were separated, then got pregnant, reconciled, and had Elliot Jr. They’ve never been divorced.

TV Insider with Mariska Hargitay; June 2018  

What about Chris Meloni (Happy) returning for a guest spot as Elliot Stabler for the 20th anniversary season? Fans have loved you two together since day one. 

Hargitay: I don’t know anything, but I think SVU is going to go on for a while. He’s on a show right now and he’s super 'happy' — literally — he’s happy, I’m happy. I’ll speak for myself: I think it would be fun to have 'one last hurrah.'

And what about also seeing, as Elliot often referred to his family, 'Kathy and the kids'? 

Hargitay: I would love to see Kathy and the kids! Let me thank you [for that suggestion]. I’m going to work on Kathy and the kids! In real-life, [Isabel Gillies, who plays Kathy] is one of my best friends.

People Magazine's Law and Order SVU special edition, 2019/2020

Interview with Christopher Meloni

Q: What were your own ideas about who Stabler should be?

Meloni: When I got the role, there were a couple of things I wanted to flesh out. I said I really think he's a pretty devout Catholic. This is the backstory that I pitched - his wife was his high school sweetheart and he got her pregnant. Even though they may not have been perfectly matched, he felt that he needed to do the right thing and marry her. It's not that he didn't love her, it's just that perhaps she wasn't ready enough or mature enough.

Exclusive: LAW & ORDER: SVU Adds a Trio of Stablers for ORGANIZED CRIME Crossover

Give Me My Remote; March 12, 2021

Elliot (Christopher Meloni) isn’t the only Stabler returning to the LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT universe: Isabel Gillies (who played Elliot’s wife, Kathy), Allison Siko (who played his daughter, Kathleen), and Jeffrey Scaperrotta (who played his son, Dickie) will guest star in the upcoming crossover that helps launch Law & Order: Organized Crime on April 1, Give Me My Remote has learned exclusively.

However, it might not be the happiest of occasions. In the SVU hour of the April 1 two-hour event, “Return of the Prodigal Son,” a threat to the Stabler family is the catalyst for a reunion with Elliot’s old squad, as the One-Six fights to keep them safe and suss out where the danger is coming from.

Gillies, Siko, and Scaperrotta have a long history with the NBC series. (Though none have appeared since Meloni’s 2011 exit.) Gilles’ Kathy was introduced in the SVU pilot and made 31 appearances over the show’s first 12 seasons. Kathy and Elliot married young, and quickly had four kids: Maureen, Kathleen, Dickie, and Elizabeth. It was revealed in season 6 Kathy left him—and took the kids—but he resisted signing divorce papers until season 8. It didn’t last long, though, because he asked to come home, and Kathy was pregnant (with Eli) by the end of season 8.

The couple had their ups and downs post-reunion—including Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) convincing Kathy not to leave Elliot when he was unexpectedly pulled undercover, as well as major issues with Kathleen and Dickie—but they appeared to be in a good place the last time they were on-screen together in season 12.

In the original plans, Kathy was supposed to show up in the SVU season 21 finale, setting up Meloni’s eventual return to the franchise and ORGANIZED CRIME.

“We heard distant thunder about Chris Meloni[‘s Elliot Stabler] coming back in the fall,” SVU showrunner Warren Leight said on the official SVU podcast, “Squadroom”  in 2020. “We were going to lay a little groundwork for that. We were going to see Kathy Stabler come back, very upset—her son has been rolled by a team of ne’er-do-wells and may have been drugged.”

“We were going to revisit Simon’s seeming overdose and get to know the stressors on the Stabler family,” he continued. “What had happened to the Stabler family after Elliot both left SVU and apparently left them? We were going to lay some groundwork down in anticipation of Elliot’s return, of course, with his own series. We had the sense that the first episode of next year was going to bring Elliot back. We were going to foreshadow that and kind of explain a little more of what happened to [Olivia’s dead brother] Simon.”

But with OC being pushed—and Kathy returning at the same time as Elliot—it’s TBA how much of that original plan was able to be worked into the current crossover.

Elliot’s relationship with his kids was also complicated. Kathleen butted heads with her father, and acted out, including getting a DUI he tried to make go away. But it was revealed in season 10’s “Swing” she was bipolar—like her paternal grandmother. After getting treatment, Kathleen seemed to settle in a healthy life, including helping her father and Olivia with a couple of cases. (Siko made her SVU debut in season 3, as the second Kathleen; she appeared in 16 episodes between seasons 3-12.)

Scaperrotta’s Dickie—who debuted in the series’ second episode and appeared in 17 episodes—got along well with his father…until the last time we saw the duo together in season 11. When Dickie and his friend went missing, things spiraled when the friend ended up dead. Dickie lashed out at his father and Olivia, and also made it clear he intended to join the military as soon as he could. But that was a storyline that never got resolved. (And Leight was vague in the “Squadroom” podcast about which son they intended to bring back, so it’s unclear whether Dickie or Eli was set to be in trouble.)

With less than three weeks until the SVU-ORGANIZED CRIME crossover—which also sees Elliot reunite with his former partner, Olivia, for the first time in nearly a decade—NBC is still keeping most details about the new Law & Order series quiet. So far, they have teased that Elliot Stabler “returns to the NYPD to battle organized crime after a devastating personal loss. Stabler will aim to rebuild his life as part of a new elite task force that is taking apart the city’s most powerful criminal syndicates one by one.” The drama also stars Dylan McDermott, Tamara Taylor, Danielle Moné Truitt, and Ainsley Seiger, with Ilene Chaiken showrunning.

Mariska Hargitay and Isabel Gillies on the set of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2006

 

‘Law & Order: SVU’ EP Talks Elliot Stabler’s Return In NBC Spinoff

Deadline; May 1, 2020

Law & Order: SVU showrunner Warren Leight has shared some thoughts on the return of Elliot Stabler in the upcoming SVU spinoff.

As we reported in March, NBC has given a series order to an SVU spinoff starring Christopher Meloni, reprising his Law & Order: SVU role as Elliot Stabler. The SVU spinoff drama revolves around the NYPD organized crime unit led by Stabler.

In a new episode of the show’s podcast, Leight talked about the return of Elliot and revealed the initial plans to bring back Kathy Stabler (Isabel Gillies) in the season 21 finale.

“We had heard distant thunder about Chris Meloni coming back in the fall and we were going to lay a little groundwork for that. We were going to see Kathy Stabler come back very upset. Her son had been rolled by a team of ne’er-do-wells and may have been drugged, and we were going to revisit Simon’s seeming overdose and we were going to get to know the stresses on the Stabler—what had happened to the Stabler family after Elliot both left SVU and apparently left them,” Leight said.

“We were just going to lay some groundwork down in anticipation of Elliot’s return of course in his own series. We had the sense that the first episode of next year for SVU was going to bring Elliot back, so we were going to foreshadow that and explain a little more what happened to Simon,” he continued.

The production shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic hit in the middle of shooting episode 21 of the series, forcing things to shift a bit in season 22. Leigh said there may be a some of season 21’s 23rd episode in season 22 and the plan for the finale may be reduced to a teaser in the upcoming season.

“It’s very hard for me to tell NBCUniversal and [Dick Wolf], ‘Can you guys hold off on introducing Elliot because I had something in mind?'” Leight said.

Law & Order: SVU has been renewed through season 24 on NBC.

It Took a Tragedy to Reunite Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson—Find Out Who Died on Law & Order: SVU Last Night

Parade; April 2, 2021

It was a reunion 10 years in the making and fans finally got to see the tragic event that reunited Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) when Meloni’s new series Law & Order: Organized Crime premiered with a Law & Order: SVU crossover Thursday night.

It all began with a car bombing.

The victim is Stabler’s wife Kathy Stabler (Isabel Gillies). Benson is called to the scene and is shocked when she recognizes her former partner's wife.

Then Stabler calls out, “Liv,” and she's just as surprised to see him, too, because they haven’t spoken in ten years. “They tried to kill her. They tried to kill Kathy,” he says, unsure of who the "they" is.

It turns out that Stabler has been living in Italy for the last several years as the NYPD international liaison in Rome and he is in New York City to testify in a case. But the timing was perfect because it also meant that he and Kathy could attend an awards ceremony in Benson’s honor and surprise her after all these years.

Stabler gets a phone call, so Kathy goes to get the car alone when the bomb explodes. The blast blows her away before the fire starts, so she initially survives and is rushed to Mercy Hospital.

When she finally wakes, Kathy tells Benson that she didn’t see anything–and then she gets nostalgic.

“It’s like the old days. The two of you together. Always in sync,” she says. Then she asks, “You really didn’t talk for 10 years?”

And Benson assures her that was the case, adding, “I didn’t even know he was back on the job.”

When Kathy falls asleep, Stabler and Benson finally get to have the reunion that everyone was waiting for, starting with his apology.

“You want to do this now?” Benson asks, “You’re sorry for leaving or for not giving me the courtesy of telling me?”

“I think I thought if I talked to you…” Stabler tries to explain.

But Benson isn’t finished. “I had to find out from Cragen,” she continues. “You were the single most important person in my life and you just…disappeared.”

Again, Stabler tries to explain, “I was afraid if I heard your voice, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”

Back at the precinct, Benson’s chief asks her to explain why Elliot left. There isn't anything in his file that explains it to his satisfaction.

Benson says she doesn’t know for sure, but she suspects it was his last shooting.

“It was a 16-year-old girl who brought a gun into the station house and it is my guess he didn’t want to go through the hoops, an IA interview, counseling. We never spoke after he left,” she tells the chief. Then she defends Stabler, saying, “He got too rough back in the day. It wasn’t just testosterone, it was because he cared so much.”

But things take a tragic turn at the hospital. Kathy’s spleen ruptures and, even though the doctors rush her into surgery, it's too late.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” Stabler says. “I don’t get it. We were happy.”

What Happened to Elliot Stabler's Wife, Kathy, on Law & Order?

Stabler and Kathy's time together ended too soon.

NBC.com; May 12, 2023

While romance tends to take the back burner for Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), he was once married to the late Kathy Stabler (Isabel Gillies) before he was dismantling criminal empires on Law & Order: Organized Crime.

Stabler and Kathy were married for over 30 years, with fans meeting her for the first time in Season 1 of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Stabler and Kathy's marriage wasn't always perfect, but they always managed to make it work. The high school sweethearts had five children together, the youngest of which was born in Season 9 of SVU. Once Stabler headed to Italy after quitting the SVU, Kathy and the kids went with him, returning to New York for a ceremony honoring Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay). 

Tragically, that trip to the Big Apple had mortal consequences for Stabler's longtime wife. Stabler has never been the same since losing Kathy, and it's safe to say that he still holds her close to his heart. 

Kathy was tragically murdered after being mortally wounded in a car bombing intended to kill Stabler. The loss is devastating for Stabler, but fortunately, he had Benson at his side to help take the blow. Notorious for always getting to the bottom of something, Stabler swiftly joined the Organized Crime Control Bureau to track down his wife's murderer, partnering up with Sgt. Ayanna Bell (Danielle Moné Truitt) as the OCCB's lead detective. 

Naturally, Stabler struggles with survivor's guilt after the attack, throwing himself into the job to distract himself from the loss. Through his investigation, Stabler learned the person responsible for killing Kathy was Richard Wheatley (Dylan McDermott), one of the most dangerously corrupt mob affiliates in the city. Stabler and Wheatley duked it out in a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse from Seasons 1-2 of Law & Order: OC until Wheatley allegedly died in the Season 2 finale, so Stabler never truly got his revenge. 

In the years following Kathy's death, Stabler has kept his romantic endeavors to a minimum. That said, there has been growing tension between him and Benson, whom Stabler recently attempted to kiss. Just as Benson told Stabler that she needed more time, Stabler's past came back to haunt him. In Season 3, Episode 20 ("The Pareto Principle"), Stabler sees the ghostly image of Kathy waiting for him in the OCCB interrogation room. 

Stunned by the strange sighting, Stabler started to wear his wedding ring again. It's a fascinating regression after he has made such massive strides in navigating a new chapter of life.

Benson lends an ear and says the sighting likely indicates Stabler hasn't addressed the trauma of losing Kathy as much as he thought he did. We'll have to wait and see what he does next about this.

Christopher Meloni’s Television Interview Snippets

The View 2006

Q: His personal life is going downhill, his partnership…

Chris: Yeah, everyone has their own opinion about that. That’s the best part, going out on the streets and people are like “Get back with her, she’s the best thing that ever happen in your life”

Q: I know that your TV wife is named Kathy, isn’t it?

Chris: Hm-mm

 The Rachael Ray Show, 2007

Q: I think you bring that to the character a lot of conflicts, you know.

Chris: I’m very privileged, my character you get to understand his home life and how he feels about his children and the things going on with his wife, how he is suffering and dealing with that. You know, it’s a lot.

Live with Regis and Kelly, 2007

(filling them in on what’s happening lately with his character)

Chris:…There’s going to be a new addition to my family.

Today Show, 2008

Q: Bring us up to date on what’s happening with Elliot these days?

Chris: He’s gone back to his wife, he has a new baby- a little boy. He’s trying to make things work in his family life.