Meeting peeps NYC #hanginWithAFriend pic.twitter.com/3DbyVDrZsV
— Chris Meloni (@Chris_Meloni) March 11, 2016
Benson and Stabler are together again! Chris Meloni may have left the long-running NBC drama Law & Order: SVU, but he’s still very close to his former costar Mariska Hargitay. The stars posed for an adorable selfie together on Friday, March 11.
“Meeting peeps NYC #hanginWithAFriend,” Meloni, 54, captioned a Twitter photo of the twosome. In the pic, the actor rocks a salt-and-pepper beard, a departure from his clean-shaven character on the show.
Fans of the procedural were left devastated when Meloni abruptly decided to leave the Dick Wolf–created series after season 12 in 2011. (The show debuted in 1999 and is currently in its 17th season.)
Last month, SVU’s showrunner, Warren Leight, revealed that there were plans to bring Meloni back if the series ended after season 17. It has since been renewed. (Leight is leaving the series after season 17.)
“If we weren’t coming back, there were a couple things I was absolutely going to do,” Leight told The Hollywood Reporter. “We had been talking [about], had this been the last episode, we would have tried to bring him back.”
Meloni, meanwhile, has moved on. He’s currently starring on WGN America’s new series Underground — and appears to be staying put. He addressed the rumors about returning to SVU earlier this week.
“I heard that rumor along with everybody else,” he told HuffPost Live on Monday. “I have no idea where that came from or what that’s about.”
