Melissa Gilbert Addresses Megyn Kelly’s Comments on Epstein’s ‘Girls,’ Shares Her Own ‘Shocking’ Experience on Little House at 15

Melissa Gilbert is speaking out against Megyn Kelly’s recent comments about convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The actress, 61, participated in the #iWasFifteen hashtag trend, in response to Kelly seemingly questioning whether Epstein was a pedophile because, to Kelly’s knowledge, he only liked girls in their teens. The trend involves women sharing photos of themselves when they were 15 years old.

Kelly, on the Nov. 12 episode of her Sirius XM program The Megyn Kelly Show, claimed that Epstein “was into the barely legal type.”

The political commentator, 54, then said, “He liked 15-year-old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. I’m definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I’m just giving you facts, that he wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds.”

“But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby,” Kelly continued, before later adding, “There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?”

Gilbert shared in a Nov. 15 Instagram post that after coming across many posts in the #iWasFifteen hashtag trend, she decided to look herself up at 15 years old on Google.

When she did so, she saw photos of herself on Little House on the Prairie with her older love interest played by Dean Butler, now 69. 

She posted photos of herself, at the young age, being embraced by and kissing Butler on the television show in a carousel that also included a photo of herself on vacation.

“I am actually nauseated,” Gilbert wrote, in part, in the post’s caption. “The girl on vacation in Hawaii with her family, is the same girl who was expected to ‘fall in love with’ and kiss a man on film who was several years older than she was. Through the lens of today, this is shocking. I have no words other than to say, ‘I WAS A CHILD.’ ‘I WAS FIFTEEN.’ And I was the good news.”

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Gilbert wrote that she’s grateful for Michael Landon — who directed, produced and starred in the popular series — her mother and “so many others” because they were “there to make sure I was safe.”

“Can you imagine if I hadn’t had them all? I am so fortunate (Sort of). Many other young women aren’t. @megynkelly you need to be careful with your words,” the actress said.

Speaking with PEOPLE in 2024 at the Little House on the Prairie 50th Anniversary Cast Reunion and Festival, Butler said he wished he was closer in age to Gilbert when they were filming.

Their characters, Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder, met in the sixth season of the show, when Butler was 23 and Gilbert was 15. Later that season, their characters shared their first on-screen kiss. 

“I’ve often said to Melissa, ‘I wish we could have been a little closer in age when we were doing this.’ But that’s not the way it really happened. Laura was 10 years younger than Almanzo. But from the perspective of playing it, I thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could have [had] … a little more common ground, so we would’ve been able to play the loving side of this in perhaps a little bit more interesting way,” Butler said.

Gilbert also criticized Kelly in January, when the political commentator wrote of the show’s upcoming Netflix reboot on X, “@Netflix if you wokeify Little House on the Prairie I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project.”

Gilbert responded on Threads, telling Kelly to “watch any episode on any streaming platform anywhere in the world.”

“Ummm…watch the original again,” Gilbert wrote in a statement. “TV doesn’t get too much more ‘woke’ than we did. We tackled: racism, addiction, nativism, antisemitism, misogyny, rape, spousal abuse and every other ‘woke ‘ topic you can think of. Thank you very much.”