Why Mariska Hargitay Gave 'Boxes and Boxes' of Gifts to Keke Palmer

Keke Palmer has been acting since she was a small child, and has some incredible stories about people she’s worked with in her long career.

In a recent interview, she revealed which celebrity left her starstruck, and how their interaction played out. “Honestly, it really shouldn’t shock the real ones, the real ones know: Olivia Benson. Oh yeah, America’s detective, also known as Mariska Hargitay,” said Palmer.

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In an interview with Buzzfeed, Palmer spoke at length about the Law and Order: Special Victims Unit star and said that she “grew up watching her show and living for her show all my life as a kid, and I got the opportunity to work with her when I was 12 years old.”

Palmer then dove into what happened when she was a guest star on the NBC series. “I was in the hospital on my last breath in character, this is the first moment I meet her. She walks through that door and I was speechless, y’all! I forgot how to act!”

She then said she “could not believe that this woman who has saved all these young girls and these young boys was here to save me! I was in deep shock for most of the scene, I told my mom ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t talk. This is Olivia Benson!’”

Afterwards, Palmer said Hargitay invited her and the other child actor in the episode to her trailer. “We go in and she has boxes and boxes and boxes of all of these goodies, because obviously she’s Olivia Benson and everybody loves her. She had all these fancy bath products, just all this beautiful stuff that girls love and she gave it all to us both. We walked out of her room with all these baskets of things.”

“It was just like the sweetest memory ever,” Palmer gushed, revealing that she messaged Hargitay years later to thank her for that moment, and that Hargitay replied that of course she remembered her. “I was just a good little moment. Olivia Benson, she’s always going to get it. And Stabler, how could you leave the show?! That’s crazy,” she concluded.

Palmer also spoke candidly about her experience as a child star in general, noting that “working with Disney you learn so much,” and comparing it to vaudeville or “the old MGM way of doing things where you would be trained as an entertainer to do singing, acting, dancing, hosting, the whole nine yards.”

“Most Disney talent are multi-skilled,” Palmer said, pointing out that others who made their way up through Disney like Vanessa Hudgens and Ryan Gosling share similar skillsets.

Next: Keke Palmer’s Humor Is Written All Over Her Birth Chart