By the time Law & Order fans got to early 2021, the desire to finally see Christopher Meloni back in action as Elliot Stabler had reached a definite fever pitch. Viewers of Law & Order: SVU had wanted him to return to the fold for basically a decade, and not only did we see his first episode back become a blockbuster, but while filming for his own series, Organized Crime, someone got a photo of Meloni which showed off his rather impressive…assets. That turned out to be the viral butt photo seen and thirsted over around the world, and now that it’s been nearly a year, Meloni is talking about the butt incident and how he knows that fans call him “zaddy.”
What Christopher Meloni Remembers About His Viral Butt Photo
If you were online at all in the early days of April 2021, you likely remember two things. One will be that Christopher Meloni finally made his return to Law & Order: SVU after suddenly departing the series back in 2011 after 12 seasons as Detective Elliot Stabler. The second thing will be that a fan managed to snap a photo of Meloni from the back while he was filming his new series, and that once that photo of his perfectly rounded posterior hit the internet, well, the internet could barely handle it.
While chatting recently with the Time to Walk podcast (via People), Meloni looked back at what happened and said:
We were shooting in Brooklyn and an innocent bystander took a picture of me as I was stretching, or just kind of leisurely testing out the mobility of my hunches, but they took a shot of my rear end — my asset — and it hit the interweb and became an international sensation overnight.
Again, if you were even slightly aware of things at the time, whether you happen to have been a huge Law & Order fan or not, you will probably recall just how crazy folks went over Meloni’s pert patootie. It led to such open thirst and longing that Meloni saw fit to give A+ responses to some comments on Twitter with, uh…(yeah, I’m just gonna do it), even cheekier responses. Which, in turn, made his fans and fans of his bodacious booty go even wilder for the man and his blessed backside.
As you may have guessed, if you saw any of Meloni’s answers to queries about his glorious glutes, he did not mind the attention at all. And, even with him also being quite amused by it, he revealed another reason for enjoying it and being able to ride the wave (though I figure that people with butts that cushiony are good at riding pretty much everything):
It traveled the globe. And I was given the moniker 'Zaddy' which I believe means an elderly gentleman with a certain patina of sexiness to them. My first reaction was 'What the hell?' and it really made me laugh. But I also felt as though their response was almost their warm welcoming of Stabler back and me back in this role.
Awwww! No wonder Christopher Meloni had such a good time with everyone going nutty over his back nethers! It served as another sign that he was being fully accepted back into the massive, far-reaching, long-running world of Law & Order, which must have been exactly what he hoped for after so many years away and wanting to give viewers some closure.
Luckily, the love hasn’t stopped, and you can catch Christopher Meloni (and his well-defined derrière) on Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2 every Thursday at 10 p.m. EST. For more to watch in the coming weeks, be sure to check out our guide to the 2022 TV premiere dates!
