Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert has joined the chorus of industry insiders appalled by Megyn Kelly’s recent comments about Jeffrey Epstein. Kelly claimed on the Nov. 12 episode of her eponymous radio show, SiriusXM, that Epstein was a “barely legal type.” She said Epstein “liked girls as young as 15” and “wasn’t interested in girls as young as 8.”
“He liked the type of very young teenagers who looked younger than they actually were, but still looked legit in the eyes of passersby,” Kelly said. “There’s a difference between being 15 years old and 5 years old, right?”
Kelly immediately faced backlash from politicians and Hollywood celebrities. Christina Ricci posted that Kelly was a “danger to children,” while the social media hashtag #iWasFifteen began being used by women online to share their own stories of how they dealt with inappropriate behavior from men at too young an age. Gilbert joined in on the trend, sharing a photo on Instagram of a kissing scene she filmed in Little House on the Prairie when she was 15 with her older male co-star Dean Butler (who is about eight years older).
“It actually makes me feel nauseous,” Gilbert wrote alongside the photo, which started with a photo from when she was 15 and on vacation. “This girl on vacation in Hawaii with her family is the same girl who was expected to ‘fall in love’ and kiss a man a few years older than her in the movie. Seen through today’s lens, this is shocking. I have no words other than ‘I was a kid.'” “I was 15.” And I had good news. ”
Gilbert said she would “thank God” to her mother and co-star and director Michael Landon, two of the many people on the set of Little House who kept her safe during production. It’s important to note that Gilbert has never claimed that any wrongdoing occurred on the set of “Little House.” “Can you imagine what would happen if I didn’t have all that? I’m very lucky (in a way). A lot of other young women don’t. Megyn Kelly, you have to be careful what you say.”
This isn’t the first time Gilbert has targeted Kelly. Earlier this year, Gilbert fired back at Kelly over comments the former Fox News host made about Netflix’s upcoming remake of Little House. Gilbert was the star of the popular NBC television adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book series, which aired for nine seasons and 204 episodes from 1974 to 1982.
“Netflix, if you wake up Little House on the Prairie, I will make it my sole mission to completely ruin your project,” Megyn Kelly posted on X when news of the Netflix reboot first broke. Gilbert responded in a thread, encouraging Kelly to “watch the episode on any streaming platform, wherever you are in the world.”
In a longer statement, Gilbert added, “Apparently Meghan (and I’m not on that platform) tweeted that Netflix should not remake ‘Little House’.” “Hmm…watch the original again. Television isn’t as ‘woke’ as we are. We tackled racism, addiction, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny, rape, spousal abuse, and every other “woke” topic you can think of. thank you very much. ”
Rebecca Sonnenshein (The Boys, The Vampire Diaries, Archive 81) is the showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie reboot. This series does not have a release date yet.
