The actor said that the incident occurred after he chased a group of women who had skipped out on their bill.

Christopher Meloni was attacked and almost run over while working as a bouncer before* Law & Order: SVU*

The actor said that the incident occurred after he chased a group of women who had skipped out on their bill.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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June 24, 2026 10:36 a.m. ET

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Christopher Meloni. Credit:

Jamie McCarthy/Getty

- Christopher Meloni once got beaten up and almost run over by a vehicle while working as a bouncer.

- The actor said that the incident occurred when he tried to stop a group of patrons who had skipped out on their bill.

- “I get onto the passenger side door. It's closed. And they're trying to roll up the window and I'm holding it down,” Meloni recalled.

Christopher Meloni is looking back at a dangerous experience that he had while working as a bouncer before his star-making role on *Law & Order: SVU*.

During a recent visit to the *Thanks Dad With Ego Nwodim* podcast, the 65-year-old actor revealed that he once got punched and almost run over by a group of bill-skipping patrons while working at a bar in New York City.

“It was a little dive bar on Bleecker Street that I worked at and, frantically, a waitress comes up to me and says… two girls ran out on the bill,” Meloni recalled. “And so me and the manager bust out onto Bleecker Street. And there was a fresh fall in snow, like, half inch, quarter inch, on the ground. And the waitress goes, ‘That's them, that's them!’ Right? So me and him go running.”

Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay on 'Law & Order: SVU'.

After catching up with the women and demanding that they pay their tab, Meloni explained that a car suddenly “screeches up” to the scene.

“I'm distracted and one gets away — they both get away — and they jump into the car,” he said. “And it's their boyfriends [driving the vehicle].”

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But Meloni wasn’t letting them get away that easy. “I get onto the passenger side door. It's closed. And they're trying to roll up the window and I'm holding it down,” he said. “And I said, ‘Get out of the car, get out of the car!’”

Instead, the man behind the wheel hit the gas. “The guy starts driving. The girl's punching me in the face,” Meloni said.  “And then the guy in the back seat [says], ‘Slam him against, hit him against the parked cars.’ He's going to try and crush me against the parked cars. And I'm skitching along, ‘cause it's fresh snow."

Meloni acknowledged that the moment “probably lasted all of three seconds,” but that it was frightening nonetheless.

“It starts going and you're wondering when can I let go without being caught under the back wheels and not…,” he said. “Whatever it was, I did let go finally. Freshly slapped and punched around.”

The *Man of Steel *star was flabbergasted by the entire incident. “I just remember going, ‘What the f--- are you thinking? What are you doing?’” he added. “I mean, probably for a bill of $45 or something.”

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Meloni would eventually go on to play Detective Elliot Stabler on *Law & Order*, as well as its spinoffs *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit *and *Law & Order: Organized Crime*. In April, *Organized Crime* was canceled after five seasons.

Watch Meloni discuss the bar incident in the clip above.

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