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Melissa Gilbert has expressed deep sorrow as she addressed her husband Timothy Busfield’s legal troubles, describing their life together as irreversibly changed. In an emotionally charged interview, her first since Busfield faced allegations of child sex abuse, she staunchly defended him.
During a segment previewed by People magazine, “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos asked Gilbert, the 61-year-old former “Little House on the Prairie” star, about her experience amidst the turmoil.
“It’s been hell,” Gilbert responded candidly. “This has been the most traumatizing experience of our lives.”
Busfield, aged 68, was taken into custody in January following accusations by Albuquerque police that he engaged in illegal sexual activities with two 11-year-old boys during his time directing the Fox series “The Cleaning Lady.”
A grand jury in Bernalillo County subsequently indicted the “West Wing” actor on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor under 13. These charges are classified as third-degree felonies and are related to alleged incidents in 2022 and 2023. Busfield has entered a plea of not guilty and is preparing for a trial scheduled for May 2027.
“Our life as we knew it is done,” Gilbert continued. “We are grieving what we had — all of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our projects. For Tim, it’s done. He’s canceled. Even if he’s exonerated, he will always be that guy.”
Gilbert then forcefully defended Busfield.
“[He’s] the last person in the world who would hurt a child,” she insisted. “And believe me, if I thought for a second that Tim Busfield hurt a child, he’d have a lot more to worry about than prison.”
A representative for Gilbert told People that the actress and Busfield’s lawyer Larry Stein spoke with Stephanopoulos because she “decided it was time to sit down to clarify the facts of the case, which seem to have become lost to distraction, selective information and clickbait.”
Busfield surrendered to authorities on Jan. 13 and was released about a week later under strict conditions following a pretrial detention hearing.
He is barred from contacting the alleged victims or their families, cannot have unsupervised contact with minors and is prohibited from possessing weapons or using alcohol or drugs while under court supervision.
Gilbert has stood by him throughout the case, including writing a letter to the judge ahead of the January hearing in which she called him “my love, my rock, my partner in business and life,” and said she knows him “better and more intimately than anything in his life ever has.”
“I only want this extraordinary man safe and whole,” she wrote, urging the court to “please, please, take care of my sweet husband.”
She added that being unable to protect him herself “is what is truly breaking my heart.”
She was also seen crying in court when a judge granted his release.
Gilbert and Busfield have been married since 2013. They share five children from previous relationships.
Busfield’s attorney has sharply criticized the prosecution, calling the case “fundamentally unsound” and pointing to what he described as “fatal weaknesses” in the evidence, while vowing to fight the charges at trial.