Kelli Giddish Recalls How First Interaction With ‘SVU’ Costar Ice-T Set Their Relationship in Stone

Kelli Giddish has been tight with Law & Order: Special Victims Unit costar Ice-T from the jump, ever since he made an affirming comment about a hairy situation during her first day playing Detective Amanda Rollins on the NBC series.

As Giddish recounted to People in a new interview, she shot a death scene for a film in Los Angeles the night before she was scheduled to be fitted for her The Good Wife wardrobe and make her debut as Rollins in SVU in New York City. She only had time for a “trailer shower” before taking a red-eye flight across the country, and as it turned out, she didn’t get all the fake blood out of her hair.

“I show up to SVU, and they’re like, ‘Your hair is still pink.’ And I’m like, ‘Sorry. Think we can just put it up?’” she said with a laugh.

When Giddish met Ice-T on set, she joked about her pink-tinged locks. “I was like, ‘Hey, how are you? I thought I’d do this,’” she remembered. “And he goes, ‘You do you, boo.’ And I go, ‘Awesome. Love it.’ That relationship was set in stone right there: mutual respect and love.”

Heidi Gutman/NBC

Giddish showed up as Rollins in SVU’s Season 13 premiere, “Scorched Earth,” premiering on September 21, 2011 (though fans might recall she had a guest-starring role as another character years prior). She left the full-time cast in Season 24 but made her return as a series regular in the just-concluded 27th season.

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That said, Giddish and Ice-T didn’t share the screen as much in Season 27 due to budgetary constraints, as the latter explained to TMZ in November 2025.

“It’s just basically business. They brought Kelli back, and at the end of the day, they couldn’t really keep both of us on full-time, as far as budget-wise,” Ice-T said at the time. “They said, ‘Ice, we’ll have you come in and out this year.’ That way we could bring — everybody wanted Kelli back. We’ve got new cops and stuff like that. But I’m not leaving the show. I’m more concerned with going to Season 28. So, this year, they said, ‘Ice, we’re going to work you a little less.’ Everything was cool with me. I understood.”

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Season 28, Fall 2026, NBC

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