For millions of people, Melissa Gilbert was our childhood. We watched her grow up on Little House on the Prairie — sweet, stubborn, beloved Laura Ingalls Wilder — never imagining what she might face behind the scenes.
But now, at 61, Gilbert is looking back at her teenage years with new, painful clarity… and it was Megyn Kelly’s recent comments about Jeffrey Epstein that pushed her there.
And what she found left her “actually nauseated.”
A Hollywood childhood revisited
The firestorm began when Megyn Kelly, on the Nov. 12 episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, appeared to downplay Epstein’s predatory behavior.
“He was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 15-year-old girls,” Kelly said, later adding, “There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?”
The remarks ignited rage online, sparking the hashtag #iWasFifteen, with women posting photos of themselves at 15 to show just how young Epstein’s victims were.
Melissa Gilbert joined in — and what she saw when she Googled herself at 15 hit her like a punch to the gut.
Gilbert confronts her 15-year-old self
Gilbert shared photos from Little House, showing herself at just 15, in love scenes with Dean Butler, who was 23.
“I am actually nauseated,” she wrote.
“The girl on vacation in Hawaii with her family, 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. I have no words other than to say, ‘I WAS A CHILD.’ ‘I WAS FIFTEEN.’ And I was the good news.”
She credited Michael Landon, her mother, and others on set for keeping her safe, but also acknowledged how easily things could have gone differently.
“Can you imagine if I hadn’t had them all? I am so fortunate (Sort of). Many other young women aren’t. @megynkelly you need to be careful with your words.”
Dean Butler speaks out:
Dean Butler, now 69, has also addressed the uncomfortable age gap.
“I think that there was anxiety on both sides of that kiss,” he admitted when speaking to People.
“I’ve often said to Melissa, ‘I wish we could have been a little closer in age when we were doing this.’ But that’s not the way it really happened,” he said. “Laura was 10 years younger than Almanzo.”
“But from the perspective of playing it, I thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could have [had] … a little more common ground, so we would’ve been able to play the loving side of this in perhaps a little bit more interesting way,” he added.
Megyn Kelly faces backlash
Kelly’s comments have sparked furious responses from celebrities and viewers alike.
Valerie Bertinelli joined the #iWasFifteen movement, writing: “This picture was taken in 1975. I’m 15. I’m a child.”
John Oliver blasted Kelly on Last Week Tonight, saying: “Please do kll me if I ever start doing pedphile math.”
Gilbert has also publicly pushed back on Kelly before. Back in January, the former Little House on the Prairie star called her out after Kelly blasted the upcoming Netflix reboot on X, warning, “@Netflix if you wokeify Little House on the Prairie I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project.”
Gilbert fired back on Threads, urging Kelly to actually revisit the original series: “watch any episode on any streaming platform anywhere in the world.”
She didn’t hold back in her full statement either:
”Ummm…watch the original again,” Gilbert wrote. ”TV doesn’t get too much more ‘woke’ than we did. We tackled: racism, addiction, nativism, antisemitism, misogyny, rape, spousal abuse and every other ‘woke’ topic you can think of. Thank you very much.”
