Melissa Gilbert contends she is “neither naive nor … complicit” having married and deciding to stand by her fellow actor Timothy Busfield amid numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, saying she exclusively has “heard his side of the story” and that it is “the truth”.
“I know this man in my bones,” the former Little House on the Prairie cast member remarked in an interview on Monday’s edition of Good Morning America. “No one knows him better than I do.”
Gilbert’s interview with the ABC program marked her first since New Mexico prosecutors in early February charged Busfield with child sexual abuse on the set of a television show.
She had fiercely defended her Emmy-winning husband, whom she married in 2013, from the allegations in an excerpt of the conversation circulated in advance as a preview. And she continued maintaining that tone when the full interview with host George Stephanopoulos aired, describing how she was balancing being “100% confident he will be exonerated” while simultaneously striving to prepare for all of the case’s possible outcomes.
Gilbert also pointedly addressed past cases which authorities had argued establish a pattern of Busfield engaging in sexual misconduct while carrying out his work.
One such episode involved allegations that Busfield groped a 16-year-old girl while she auditioned at Sacramento’s B Street Theatre, which he co-founded. Authorities said that matter concluded with Busfield attending therapy and the girl’s family agreeing not to report him to police.
Then, in 1994, a 17-year-old extra on Little Big League, one of Busfield’s movies, claimed he assaulted her after serving her alcohol. Busfield, who had won an Emmy for his performance on Thirtysomething three years earlier, settled the allegations privately while asserting that he was being extorted. He was also ordered to pay $150,000 in costs after he unsuccessfully claimed that the allegations against him had been fabricated.
Gilbert told Stephanopoulos that she “talked to [Busfield] about it” before the pair embarked on their relationship – and she was satisfied with what he had to say.
“I am neither naive, nor am I complicit,” she said. “I talked to him about it; I asked him questions about it; I heard his side of the story – which no one [else] has ever heard, which is the truth.”
Gilbert said she anticipated Busfield would eventually share “the truth of these past allegations when he needs to”, though that time “is not now”.
“I know literally everything about him,” Gilbert also said. “He is nothing if not completely honest with me.
“He is an honorable, caring, generous human being.”
Busfield is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in May 2027 – he has been allowed to await that proceeding from out of the custody of New Mexico authorities.
Those investigators accuse him of inflicting the acts at the center of the charges against him between November 2022 and the spring of 2024 on the set of the TV drama series The Cleaning Lady, for which he directed and acted.
Busfield, 68, is suspected of inappropriately touching one boy, in particular, over his clothing once when the child was seven years old and another time at age eight.
The boy’s twin brother also reported that Busfield allegedly touched him inappropriately.
Busfield – also known for his work on Revenge of the Nerds, The West Wing and Field of Dreams – has pleaded not guilty. He also has dismissed the accusations as “all lies” in a video shared with the entertainment news outlet TMZ.
Gilbert, 61, echoed Busfield in her talk with Stephanopoulos, saying she spoke to Good Morning America when she did because she and her husband had “been hearing and reading too much untruth”.
