Melissa Gilbert, 59, is embracing the idea of getting older.
The actress, best known for starring in “Little House on the Prairie,” admits in a new interview that while she’s undergone plastic surgery and various cosmetic procedures in the past, she’s now given it up and is content to age on her own terms.
Looking back at her time on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2012, she told People, “I was approaching 50 and there was this panic of, ‘This is it. I’ve got to wring this out while I can.'”
Melissa Gilbert said she “became the spawn of Satan” after certain cosmetic choices. (Valery Hache/AFP)
Because of that, she admits to making some “bad choices,” namely certain cosmetic procedures.
“I literally looked like Carrot Top, the comedian. My hair was too red, and when I did Botox, I became the spawn of Satan with pointy eyebrows,” she said. “I had no facial expression, which is anathema considering what I do for a living.
“It’s exhausting keeping up that kind of façade. I was very insecure.”
Melissa Gilbert pictured in 2012. (Cindy Ord)
That same year, she met her husband, Timothy Busfield, and with his encouragement, she decided to give up her attempts at looking younger.
“I embraced it,” she said about the idea of aging. “And when I would say, ‘I think I’m going to stop coloring my hair,’ he’d say, ‘Can’t wait to see what color it is. This is so exciting!’ When I said, ‘I think I want to get my breast implants taken out permanently,’ he said, ‘Do it!’”
“It’s incredibly uplifting to be with someone who says, ‘I love you exactly the way you are.’
Timothy Busfield and wife Melissa Gilbert pose at the opening night after-party for Irish Rep’s production of “The Seafarer” at Crompton Ale House April 18, 2018, in New York City. (Bruce Glikas)
“It makes a big difference to come home to someone who sees me in sweats with no makeup on and my hair back in a ponytail and goes, ‘Oh, you are the most beautiful woman.’ As opposed to someone who goes, ‘I think you could lose a little weight.’ Or, ‘I’m getting nervous about these lines around your eyes.’ Which did happen in my past.”
Now, ten years after marrying Busfield, she said she’s in a much different place than she was when she met him.
“I don’t color my hair anymore,” she told People. “I don’t put any fillers or Botox in my face. I take care of myself to the best of my ability, but I am what I am. I am not going sacrifice my own well-being because someone expects me to be something they have in their mind.”
Melissa Gilbert and husband Timothy Busfield live in a cottage in New York. (Stephane Cardinale/Corbis/Corbis)
She said because of her role as Laura “Half Pint” Ingalls on “Little House on the Prairie,” “there are people who will perennially assume that I’m 12 years old, And I will always be that girl, full of wonder and running through the fields. Half Pint is inside me always. But we are all aging.
“I wouldn’t want to be younger,” she insisted. “I wouldn’t want to have to learn these lessons again. I like where I am. Happy in my skin, happy in my life.”
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Acknowledging there are some women in Hollywood in her age group “who are still a size 2 or a 0,” Gilbert explained, “That’s not what my life is right now. It’s attainable, but it’s fleeting. You have to keep it up. I did that in my 20s, and I don’t have the wherewithal to do it anymore.
“If that’s what you want to do with your time, great. I’d rather get down in a sandbox and play with my grandchildren.”
Melissa Gilbert has been embracing a simpler life. (Pascal Le Segretain)
Gilbert has one son from her first marriage to Bo Brinkman and another with second husband Bruce Boxleitner. Busfield has three children of his own from previous relationships, and together the couple share eight grandchildren.
She expressed a similar desire to live a simpler, more family-focused life in a conversation with Fox News Digital last year.
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“Our lives got very, very simple,” she said of her move with Busfield to a rustic cottage in the Catskill Mountains in New York. “Our lives are simple now, and there’s a sweetness to that simplicity. And with that simplicity comes a real love for stillness and living my life in a peaceful place. That means not fighting a natural process. Fighting a process that is as natural as aging is the opposite of peaceful.
Melissa Gilbert, pictured in 2017, has eight grandchildren she shares with her husband. (Roy Rochlin)
“It’s an uphill battle. Eventually, everyone loses. It just does not fit in with who I am and what my life is now. It’s exhausting and it’s unnecessary.”
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When asked about the concept of slow living, Gilbert answered, “I don’t know if it’s anything like slow food or slow cooking, which is the opposite of fast food. So, enjoying life, savoring it all, taking your time, really being mindful and aware of each passing moment.
“If that’s what we’re talking about, disconnecting and not feeling like everything’s a competition and we’re always kind of trying to keep up with the Joneses. If that’s what slow living is, then that’s what I’m doing. I absolutely subscribe to that. It’s changed my whole life.”
