At the turn of the decade, Diane Neal was best known for her role as Casey Novak in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. After quitting the show in 2012, Neal all but disappeared from the public eye, re-emerging in late 2018 in a very different capacity (as a candidate for the House of Representatives, of all things), and again last month as the plaintiff in a court case in a domestic abuse court case involving magician, JB Benn. Find out more about the actress with these ten little facts.

1. She began her career as a model

Neal was born in November 1975 in Alexandria, Virginia, but raised in Colorado and Ohio. After graduating from high school, Neal moved to Hawaii to pursue a college degree. However, she soon decided to quit school in favor of modeling and traveling. She subsequently spent the following few years appearing in ads for the likes of Shiseido and Pond.

2. Her film debut was in Asterix & Obelix

Although Neal is best known as a TV actress, she’s also built up a significant portfolio of work in film over the years. Her big-screen debut came as the voice of Cleopatra in Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002), a role she swiftly followed up with parts in Dracula II: Ascension (2003), Second Born (2003), Mr. Jones (2013), A Warden’s Ransom (2014), and The Emissary (2015).

3. She ran for the US House of Representatives

In February 2018, Neal made the announcement that acting would be taking a sideline to her political ambitions. Having declared she’d be running for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s 19th congressional district, Neal set about outlining her political leanings, describing her position as “a little libertarian, I’m a lot liberal, mostly progressive, but I have this amazing ability to be able to take really complicated policy and break it down into edible sound bites, which is something most progressive liberals cannot do.” In the event, the public decided they preferred Neal on their TV screens than in government: the actress finished the race with a woeful 1% of the vote.

4. She’s a divorcee

In 2005, Neal (then 29 years old) married Marcus Fitzgerald, a former model she’d met through a mutual friend. The couple tied the knot in a private ceremony on the Dominican Republican. Despite sticking together as Neal’s star began to rise, they eventually parted ways, announcing their divorce in 2014.

5. She’s had a turbulent love life

In 2014, Neal probably thought the low point of her personal life would forever be her recent divorce from her husband of 9 years, Marcus Fitzgerald. Fast forward to 2019, and it was clear she couldn’t have been more wrong. In November, the actress filed an amended complaint in an ongoing court case against her former boyfriend, the magician JB Benn. In the complaint, Neal alleged Benn was guilty of nine charges, including fraud, identity theft, assault and battery, defamation, and emotional distress. Benn denied the allegations, telling the court that Neal had fabricated the story “as a tactic to cloud the fact that she is not entitled to the relief she seeks.”

6. She was accused of threatening to kill her boyfriend’s dog

As part of the ongoing legal saga involving Benn and Neal, Benn has shown no hesitation in fighting fire with fire. In the wake of Neal’s amended complaint in November, a video was released to the Daily Beast in which Neal is heard threatening to harm Benn and kill his pet dog by shooting it in the head. Neal’s lawyer, Sarmad M. Khojasteh, responded to the release of the tape by claiming it “offers a heartbreaking look at the tortured existence Ms. Neal endured at the hands of Mr. Benn.” He subsequently went on to allege Benn had released the recording “to distract from the allegations of assault against him, which are corroborated by witnesses, and from the fact he is currently [prohibited] from contacting [Neal].”

7. She went back to school in 2009

After quitting college the first time around, Neal decided in 2009 that the time was ripe for her to return to her studies. After casting around for the right course and right school she finally settled on Harvard Extension School. “I realized I could do neuroscience, I could do archaeology, I could do theology, I could do everything I wanted,” she told the Harvard Gazette. “Harvard Extension School has given me access to the smartest people in the world who really love what they do. Everyone is a believer in what they’re doing. They’re so passionate and enthusiastic about it, it can’t help but make you catch fire about it too.”

8. A car accident put her acting career on hold

In 2013, Neal was involved in a devastating car accident that left her with a fractured spine. The injuries forced Neal to put her acting career on ice… and inadvertently sparked her interest in politics (a spark that would continue to burn until her 2018 bid to stand for the House of Representatives). “I’m upstate because a drunk driver fractured my spine, and so I have been dealing with that for a few years without being able to work,” she told Elle. “The only benefit of that is that I have a lot of free time. And I have been here full-time upstate [in New York] and I see how neglected it is.”

9. She played two characters on SVU

In 2001, Neal made her first-ever appearance on SUV as the female rapist Amelia Chase on an episode entitled Ridicule. The actress must clearly have impressed the show’s producers, as two years later, she was invited back to appear as Assistant District Attorney Casey Novak in the show’s fifth season. Neal left the show at the end of season 9, but later made a return in the season 12 episode “Reparations”, and appeared in a recurring capacity in season 13.

10. Her Net Worth

Giving her many credits across both TV and screen, its little wonder Neal isn’t short of a dollar or two these days. According to Celebrity Net Worth, the talented actress is currently worth a whopping $8 million.