Melissa Gilbert is speaking out after Megyn Kelly made comments about Jeffrey Epstein that upset a lot of people online. On her show, Kelly talked about how some people believed Epstein was not a pedophile because he targeted girls who were around fifteen. She compared fifteen year olds to very young children. Her words sparked anger and confusion across social media.
Soon after, the hashtag #IWasFifteen began trending. Women shared their photos from when they were fifteen to show how young they really looked at that age. Many also shared personal stories from their teenage years. When Gilbert saw these posts, she felt the need to join the conversation.
She went on Instagram and explained that she searched for pictures of herself at fifteen. What she found bothered her. Gilbert started working on Little House on the Prairie at just ten years old. When she was fifteen, she was filming romantic scenes with her costar Dean Butler. She was a teenager. He was twenty three.
Gilbert posted several photos from those years. Some showed her kissing Butler for the show. Looking at them now, she said she felt sick. She wrote that the cheerful girl in one photo from a family vacation was the same girl expected to act in love with a much older man on screen. She said it is unsettling to look back at it today. She repeated that she was a child at fifteen.
She also shared that she was lucky to have her mother, Michael Landon, and a few others who made sure she felt safe on set. She added that many young actors do not get that level of support.
Gilbert ended her message by asking Megyn Kelly to be careful about the way she talks about sensitive topics. This is not the first time the two have clashed. They also disagreed earlier this year when Kelly criticized the idea of a Little House on the Prairie reboot.
The post of Gilbert has once again started an important conversation about how young actors are treated and how adults should speak about minors.
