Melissa Gilbert remembers ‘Little House on the Prairie’ as it turns 50
The wholesome Ingalls family has charmed generations of young women through its star, Melissa Gilbert.
Melissa Gilbert is looking back on “Little House on the Prairie” with a new lens after 50 years.
The 61-year-old actress, who played Laura Ingalls Wilder on all nine seasons of the NBC show from 1974 to 1983, took to Instagram on Nov. 15 to reflect on how the eight-year age difference between herself and her onscreen romantic partner, the actor Dean Butler, now makes her “nauseated.”
“So, I debated posting this, but I feel compelled to share. After seeing many women’s posts with the hashtags #iwasfifteen #imfifteen #iwasachild, I decided to Google search myself at that age and see what came up,” Gilbert captioned a series of photos of her younger self. “And this is some of what I found… and now, at this age, at this time, I am actually nauseated.”
Gilbert, who was 9 when she was chosen as the series’ star, criticized the fact that when she was 15, she was acting opposite Butler, who played Almanzo Wilder, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s husband, who was 23 years old.
“The girl on vacation in Hawaii with her family [in the first photo] is the same girl who was expected to ‘fall in love with’ and kiss a man on film who was several years older than she was. Through the lens of today, this is shocking,” she wrote. “I have no words other than to say, ‘I WAS A CHILD.’ ‘I WAS FIFTEEN.’ And I was the good news.”
Dean Butler, now 69, joined the cast in Season 6, which started airing in 1979.
Gilbert then acknowledged that she was lucky to have not been taken advantage of as a child actor on “Little House,” crediting her mother and costar Michael Landon, who played her on-screen father.
“Thank God my mom and Michael and so many others were there to make sure I was safe. Can you imagine if I hadn’t had them all? I am so fortunate (Sort of). Many other young women aren’t,” she wrote.
Melissa Gilbert calls out Megyn Kelly for comments about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged victims
The actress ended her message by calling out “The Megyn Kelly Show” for its Nov. 12 episode, in which Kelly came across as downplaying Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged underage victims: “@megynkelly you need to be careful with your words.”
Kelly, who has previously sparred with Gilbert on social media, called Epstein “an actual pedophile” but argued that the severity of child sexual assault is different if the victim is a teenager.
“We have yet to see anybody come forward and say, ‘I was 10, I was under 14, when I first came within his purview,'” Kelly said.
“Look, you can say that’s a distinction without a difference. I think there is a difference. There’s a difference between a 10-year-old and a 5-year-old,” she continued. “It’s sick. Every time we start talking about Epstein, it makes your skin crawl, right? The whole thing is just disgusting.”
In 2019, a decade after pleading guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution and registering as a sex offender, Epstein was arrested on federal charges of child sex trafficking. According to federal prosecutors, his alleged victims were “as young as 14.”
He was found dead of an apparent suicide in his jail cell a month later, while awaiting trial.
“I think we’ve inched forward, but certainly not enough for me, anyway.”
If you are a survivor of sexual assault, RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) and Hotline.RAINN.org and en Español RAINN.org/es.
