What you need to know
Timothy Busfield will be cut out of a new film while facing charges of child sexual abuse.
A scene featuring Busfield, 68, from Penn Badgley and Meghan Fahey’s romantic comedy “You Deserve Each Other” has been deleted following her arrest, PEOPLE has confirmed. TMZ was first to report the news.
Mr. Busfield is being held in New Mexico on the charges and is being held without bail, but Mr. Busfield denies the charges, calling them “terrible” and “all lies.” He stars in the Amazon-MGM Studios film as Barney, a character that Deadline says is Fahey’s father. Since filming has already wrapped, the actors will be edited out of the final cut of the film.
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After the Albuquerque Police Department issued an arrest warrant on January 9th, the West Wing alum turned himself in to authorities and was indicted on January 13th. The warrant alleges that Busfield engaged in illicit sexual acts with twin 11-year-old child actors he met on the set of the Fox series “Cleaning Women,” which Busfield directed.
Bernalillo District Attorney Sam Bregman released a statement on January 13 announcing the news that Busfield had been charged with two counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and one count of child abuse. Prosecutors are asking that he remain in custody while awaiting trial.
Mr. Busfield, an Emmy Award winner, made his first court appearance on January 14, and a New Mexico judge confirmed that Mr. Busfield will remain in custody ahead of a pretrial detention hearing on Tuesday, January 20. Mr. Busfield’s wife, Melissa Gilbert, who starred in Little House on the Prairie, has been named as a potential witness in the case.
Directed by Mark Silverstein and Abby Cohn, You Deserve Each Other is a big-screen adaptation of Sarah Hogle’s 2020 novel of the same name. Filmed in New York in the summer of 2025, the romantic comedy does not yet have a release date.
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Badgley, 39, and Fahey, 35, play Nick and Naomi, who are “married and trying to live happily ever after, but the only problem is that they’re completely heartbroken,” the official synopsis reads. “As the wedding day approaches and the pressure mounts, the two secretly decide to force the other to cancel the wedding, but along the way they fall in love again.”
If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453 or visit www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. Our hotline is available 24/7 in over 170 languages.
