Mariska Hargitay remains captivated by the wedding celebration she attended more than two months ago, when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce exchanged vows at one of New York City's most iconic venues.
The 62-year-old Law & Order: SVU actress appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday, September 9, where she offered her perspective on the couple's July 3 nuptials at Madison Square Garden. Hargitay attended the ceremony alongside her husband, Peter Hermann.
"I did [go to the wedding]," Hargitay told Us Weekly. "And I'm still floating from that wedding."
The actress expressed particular admiration for how Swift and Kelce, both 36, managed to transform the massive arena into something unexpectedly personal. Madison Square Garden holds a capacity of 20,000 people, yet Hargitay emphasized the ceremony felt remarkably close and meaningful.
"It was so spectacular and so intimate, I have to say," she told Us Weekly. "I have to say, I am blown away, because when there's a wedding with that many guests, you think, 'OK, it's gonna be that.' And it just wasn't."
Hargitay singled out one particular element of the celebration as especially memorable. "I even say that the vows were my favorite part of the whole wedding. It was that magical," she told Us Weekly.
The friendship between Hargitay and Swift extends back more than a decade, originating when Swift named her cat Olivia Benson after Hargitay's character on Law & Order: SVU. Their bond strengthened over the years, with Hargitay appearing in Swift's "Bad Blood" music video in 2015.
During her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Hargitay also recalled attending Game 4 of the NBA Finals in June, when the New York Knicks faced the San Antonio Spurs. She and Swift sat together in the front row, both wearing matching "Stevie Knicks" T-shirts in the team's signature blue and orange colors.
"It was pretty spectacular. I had run from my theater — I was doing a play at the time — [I] physically ran from my theater to the game," Hargitay told Us Weekly.
The actress explained how Swift came prepared with the coordinating shirts. "We were sitting together and I was wearing a black T-shirt, and Taylor, being the prepared woman that she is, was like, 'I got you.' Basically handed [the shirt] to me, I put it on, and that was the end of it," she told Us Weekly.
In a June 2025 interview on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, Hargitay praised her experience working with Swift on the "Bad Blood" music video. "It was so fun. It's the best music video," she told Us Weekly. "That was the most fun, being in the squad with all the cool girls and supermodels. It was the most fun ever."
Hargitay described Swift as a "boss lady" who was "warm and smart and kind," adding that she learned significantly from the singer. "That's what I love about her is [that] she's so young, but she shows us in such beautiful ways how to be fearless," she told Us Weekly.
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Ava Hart
Ava Hart is a pop culture junkie and loves to share what's happening in Hollywood and what trends are taking the world by storm.
