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‘Law & Order: SVU’ Actor Isabel Gillies Breaks Down After Online Bullying from Benson/Stabler Shippers

They may play characters on shows, but, believe it or not, your favorite actors have feelings too.

Notorious villains, or just all-around thoroughly unlikeable characters on TV, tend to get all the hate and distaste from passionate fans on social media. While some of it could be tasteful or all in good fun, other times it can be a bit too much.

Isabel Gillies recently spoke out about her experience with online hate and bullying due to her role in “Law & Order: SVU.” For reference, Gillies played Kathy Stabler in the series. She was the wife of a very popular character, Detective Elliot Stabler.

Stabler, played by Christopher Meloni, recently returned to the “Law & Order” world when he became the star of a new spin-off series, “Law & Order: Organized Crime.”

Isabel Gillies Hate from ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Fans

She played her character for a total of 12 seasons. It was a small, recurring role. She wrote in a blog post on her website, “I got paid by the episode. It wasn’t ‘crazy TV money,’ but it helped pay the bills while I raised a family. It was a job and I’m grateful I had it.” She was also asked to return to the show for a single episode recently. Her time back on the show was short-lived (literally) when she got blown up and killed by a car bomb.

It was a small return back into the acting world alongside her friends Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni. However, her appearance on the show came years after her initial time on “Law & Order: SVU.” In the meantime, social media had become widely popular and fans flocked to different platforms to talk about TV.

https://twitter.com/isabelgillies/status/1445405783441743874

So, Gillies was pretty shocked when she opened her feed after that episode aired and saw a tyrant of hate coming from devoted “Law & Order: SVU” fans that adore the Benson-Stabler ship.

“My feed, which is normally pretty sleepy, a retweeted article here, a few shoutouts about a recipe there, was a stream of eye-popping-bile posts, at me! My character, the deceased Kathy Stabler, was trending on Twitter. Gliding over links and threads, memes and emojis, I started, well, crying. ‘KATHY STABLER IS BURNING IN THE DEEPEST PART OF HELL.’ Scroll, scroll…’YOU DESERVE TO BLOW UP!’ Scroll, scroll… ‘Good morning to absolutely everyone except Kathy Stabler’s ghost.’ Scroll, scroll… ‘This girl is the nastiest, ska** bi**h I’ve ever met!’” she wrote on her blog.

Future Outlook

Kathy Stabler, to many fans, has long been the one divider between a happily ever after scenario for Captain Olivia Benson and Detective Elliot Stabler. Especially recently, the series has been teasing fans with the possibility of a love affair between the two.

Or, as Gillies puts it, the show has a “tried and true, will-they-get-together-or-not-plot, that has the show’s millions of fans all riled up.” She also revealed that she doesn’t watch “Law & Order” and the characters are the least of her concern. However, she did call her husband crying over the rude comments and eventually reached out to Mariska Hargitay. She called her one of the “most empathetic, loving people on this earth.”

Hargitay said to not take it personally and that she herself has gotten plenty of hate over the years too.