Mariska Hargitay Recalls Father Mickey’s ‘Devastating,’ Incurable Cancer Diagnosis: ‘He Was So Strong’ (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Mariska Hargitay reflects on her father Mickey Hargitay’s struggle with multiple myeloma and its impact on her family

• The actress emphasizes the importance of community and hope for those affected by the incurable blood cancer

• She is partnering with Bristol Myers Squibb to raise awareness about the disease and ongoing research efforts

Mariska Hargitay is opening up about the devastating loss of her father to an incurable cancer, and why she hopes others won’t have to experience the same heartbreak.

The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star recently spoke to PEOPLE about her late father, bodybuilder-turned-actor Mickey Hargitay, who died in 2006. The actress, 62, says Mickey was always high-energy and valued his active lifestyle. But things changed for him around her 2004 wedding to husband Peter Hermann.

“Something was different about him,” she recalls. “My father was very powerful and vibrant. He was always moving and working. And at my wedding, I noticed that he was just different and kind of low energy. I just thought he was having an emotional reaction to me getting married.”

Shortly after her wedding, Hargitay learned that it had nothing to do with the event — her dad’s health was declining. “He was sharing how exhausted he was and how he was having bone pain,” she says.

Not long after, her father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer with recurring tumors that eat away at bone marrow, damaging bones and the immune system.

“It was truly shocking to our family, especially because my dad was so healthy and obviously a leader in physical health and wellness,” she says, referring to his 1955 Mr. Universe title. “There was just nothing he couldn’t do. So when this happened, none of us could really download it because he’d always said that he was gonna live to be 150. And he was such an extraordinary person that we actually bought it.”

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“And we began to see this sort of demise of him and his body and weakness setting in,” she continues. “He lost weight and was thinner. Just a devastating time for us and very difficult to process.”

Hargitay admits she knew nothing about multiple myeloma before her father’s diagnosis, and witnessing the impact it had on his health was tough. But she says his personality never wavered.

“It was extraordinary to watch how he walked through it with such grace and in a truly heroic way,” she says. “Obviously the disease is incurable, but he was so positive and strong and said, ‘We’re gonna deal with it.’ “

Mickey ultimately died from the disease in September 2006 at 80 years old.

“We were devastated because he was — and I think my siblings feel the same way as I do — he was our hero and our north star. He was our everything, such a model for us about how to be,” Hargitay says. “The biggest gift is how it made our family even closer and how we got to say goodbye to him, which is something I still carry because I do feel that he’s always with me.”

Hargitay points out that about 36,000 new cases of multiple myeloma are expected this year, according to the American Cancer Society.

“A lot of people are affected by it and it’s scary. And when people receive news like this, they shut down and isolate and retreat. But this is a time not to do that,” she explains. “I think the most powerful and healing thing that we can do is to stay in community, take care of each other and talk to your doctors and find out what’s available.”

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So, in honor of her late father, Hargitay is partnering with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) for the launch of their “Investigating Myeloma” campaign, raising awareness of multiple myeloma and spotlighting the importance of ongoing scientific investigation of the disease.

“I’ve always been somebody who likes to talk about things that people don’t always wanna talk about,” she explains. “I think that talking about things that make us feel vulnerable can actually empower us.”

“This disease is really hard and it’s really scary and it’s painful because as of right now, it is still incurable. But it’s treatable and that is the difference,” she tells PEOPLE, pointing to BMS’s new CELMoD research, which focuses on trying to stimulate the immune system to enhance killing of myeloma cancer cells.

“There is so much hope now that wasn’t there before, 20 years ago, when my father was diagnosed,” Hargitay adds. “There’s just so much being done and the CELMoD research is going to be the game changer. So the idea that there is hope now is something I wanna scream from the rooftops.”

Read the original article on People