Melissa Gilbert now feels ‘nauseated’ by age difference with ‘Little House on the Prairie’ husband

NY Post ^ | 11/17/25 | Eric Todisco

[ealgeone]

Then return the money.

[MortMan]

It’s called playing a part, Melissa.

It also is, sometimes, historically accurate despite the fact it would be out of synch now.

[goodnesswins]

8 years!!! Big deal.

[TangoLimaSierra]

I think Dean would find her too old now anyway.

[ropin71]

Only 61? She dresses and looks like a 70 year old grandma. 25 years ago she was smoking hot

[KamperKen]

She probably had a stage mom and spent some time on the casting couch.

[Bubba_Leroy]

My grandfather was born in 1880. My grandmother (my grandfather’s second wife) was born in 1896. That was not at all uncommon before the turn of the last century. Many first and second wives died during childbirth.

[Bubba_Leroy]

I’m still trying to figure out what it was that Megyn Kelly said that was “controversial.”

FTA: “He liked 15-year-old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. I’m definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I’m just giving you facts, that he wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds,” she said.

“But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby,” Kelly added. “There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?”

[mass55th]

"8 years!!! Big deal."

My father was 16 years older than my mother when they married, and it wasn't a shotgun wedding. Their first child wasn't born until 4 years later. Three more followed. I was the last. My father was born in 1904. My mother in 1920. My mother quit high school at 16. Her mother blessed the marriage. My mother's birthday was October 9th. They married on October 10th, 1936. They were married 42 years when my father passed. In today's world, my father would be looked upon as a pedophile by the perverted left.

[chajin]

1) In the movie Broken Arrow, James Stewart was in reality 42 and his love interest Debra Paget was 16.

2) One of my greatgrandfathers was also 42 when he married his third wife (first two died consecutively), who was also 16, my greatgrandmother. He died about 20 years later, and she married three more times, each husband dying consecutively.

3) My wife was 15 years younger than I, which greatly concerned her family, who only later concluded that we were OK as a couple. She passed away almost five years ago now of complications from MS.

4) Robert Schumann was 30 when he proposed to Clara Wieck, who was 15. Her parents refused the marriage, so Schumann sued them, and the lawsuit took so long that Clara turned 18 and they got married. After Robert died of complications from syphilis, Johannes Brahms, who was 15 years younger than Clara, proposed to her; she said no, she would spend her life promoting her late husband.

Relax, Melissa.

[I-ambush]

“Thirteen, fourteen, she’s in her prime
Fifteen, sixteen she still has time
Sixteen, seventeen her time is done
Nineteen, twenty-Pa needs a shotgun”
—Grannie from Beverly Hillbillies

[Opinionated Blowhard]

However, Gilbert noted that she was always “safe” on the show’s set thanks to her mother and her co-star, Michael Landon, who portrayed her on-screen father. “Can you imagine if I hadn’t had them all?” she wrote. “I am so fortunate (Sort of). Many other young women aren’t.”

What is she saying? That Dean Butler was a predator?

[Alberta's Child]

... reflected on the 8-year age difference between herself and Dean Butler, who played her on-screen love interest in the NBC series.

Or maybe Michael Landon did a superb job of casting the show.

The real-life Laura (Ingalls) Wilder was eight years younger than her husband, Almanzo Wilder.

[KC_Conspirator]

No kidding. 8 years? Big whoop. I bet if the ages were reversed it would be called “liberating” or something modernly stupid.

[Gay State Conservative]

20 and 12 is bad....30 and 22 isn’t really bad.

[cymbeline]

“I’m still trying to figure out what it was that Megyn Kelly said that was “controversial.”

Me too.

[Whatever Works]

I have an 8 year difference with my husband of 35 years. She is nuts.... And looking for significance in her fading famous life.

[Revel]

Back in those days I liked Laura the best. But Marry was actually the better character. And it seems that Melissa Sue Anderson did not spend her life crying on the Howard Sterns show and other places in attempt to make the show seem bad.

[Jamestown1630]

This seems ridiculous. That age difference was not uncommon for the time the series portrayed.

(Did she or her parents complain about it at the time?)