Some red-carpet pairings you can predict. Sydney Sweeney and Christopher Meloni trading a giddy Emmys selfie wasn’t one of them. Seated near the Law & Order: SVU icon—whose series hits Season 27 on the 2025 TV schedule—at the 2025 Emmy ceremony, Sweeney did what any fan would: snapped the moment and shared it.
Sweeney posted the evidence on her Instagram Story, which you can see below, sharing a group selfie from inside the ceremony and writing, “If you know me you know how excited I was,” while tagging @chris_meloni and @therealmariskahargitay. The energy is peak “I just met my TV hero,” and the grin says it all.
Talk about a delightful crossover of entertainment worlds. Sweeney is a lead on the prestige drama Euphoria (available with an HBO Max subscription), while Meloni anchored Law & Order: SVU from 1999 to 2011 before returning in the spinoff Law & Order: Organized Crime (streaming with a Peacock subscription). His pop-culture profile—part stoic detective, part wink-to-camera icon—made the Madame Web actress’s genuine fangirl moment especially great to see.
And since we’re talking Meloni, it’s worth zooming out on the career arc that made this selfie such a thrill. He launched Elliot Stabler on Law & Order: SVU in 1999 and, across 12 seasons, helped define the show’s steel-spined heart as a detective who could be volcanic at times but tender with survivors. Not to mention, he was also unshakably loyal to his partner, Olivia Benson. When Meloni left after Season 12, Stabler’s absence became part of SVU lore—one of those TV departures that fans still debate in comment sections and think pieces.
To seal her Law & Order cred, the White Lotus veteran also tagged Mariska Hargitay—a smart move. Even though Hargitay isn’t in the shot, the honorary gif nod is a love letter to fans who’ve long shipped Benson and Stabler (a.k.a. Bensler Nation). If you’ve ever yelled “DUN-DUN!” at your screen, you felt this one.
Law & Order: Organized Crime reintroduced Stabler to New York with a new mission, swapping SVU’s case-of-the-week rhythm for serialized takedowns of criminal syndicates. The spinoff leans into long-game storytelling, with season-spanning nemeses, while letting Meloni flex the full range that made him a star. Crossovers with SVU keep the connective tissue strong (and Bensler speculation alive), yet Organized Crime feels unmistakably its own animal, straddling prestige and pop entertainment, which is exactly why a quick awards-night selfie with the Everything Sucks! actress is so apropos.
The Sharp Objects alum had a year of whiplash-fast pivots—thrillers, rom-coms, a superhero one-off, high-gloss fashion campaigns—and yet her awards-night highlight was being a fan among legends. It’s the best kind of celebrity moment when they are entirely relatable. And for Meloni, whose career sits at the intersection of “serious actor” and “walking meme,” it’s further proof that the SVU extended universe includes basically all of us.
Should we, Sweeney and Law & Order fans, start manifesting a cameo in the L&O cosmos? Look, we’ve seen crazier crossovers, and the casting synergy is right there. And even if it doesn’t happen, we can still file this Emmy crossover under: unexpectedly wholesome.
As for Sydney Sweeney’s next role, she is set to star as Christy Martin in the biopic Christy, set to hit the 2025 movie schedule on November 7.
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