Melissa Gilbert shared a cryptic post about injustice and accountability less than a week before her husband, Timothy Busfielda warrant was issued for his arrest for alleged child sexual abuse.
“You seem to have a misplaced discomfort with injustice,” an anonymous quote shared via Gilbert’s Instagram page on Monday, Jan. 5, read, along with the hashtags of “Frailty,” “You Know Who You Are,” and “That’s Right, I’m Looking at You.”
Gilbert, 61, further explained his reasoning for sharing the message in the comments section.
“Basically this comment about playing the victim and blaming others. It’s about not taking responsibility for your own situation,” he stated. “It’s about being a big whiny baby. I saw that quote and it hit me.”
Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield have been married since 2013 after having a long career in Hollywood. “Our business in Los Angeles is very difficult because it’s everywhere in this city (and) everyone is involved in it in some way,” said Gilbert, best known for playing Laura Ingalls on The Little House on the Prairie (…)
The Little house on the prairie the alum continued: “I have a particularly hard time with people who play the victim. You get your shit. Step up. It’s all pretty general. It has nothing to do with politics, but everything to do with privilege and attitude and weakness.”
While Gilbert didn’t specifically reveal the inspiration for his upload, he noted that it was “definitely not” about Venezuela. (The US military captured the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife earlier this month, accusing the dictator of narco-terrorism charges. Maduro pleaded not guilty to all charges.)
Four days later, news broke that Busfield, 68, had named in an arrest warrant after being accused of child sexual abuse by two minors he worked with on the set of The cleaning woman. The West Wing The actor was not immediately arrested and claimed in an investigative interview cited in the arrest warrant that it was “highly unlikely” he had physical contact with the accusers.
“I asked Timothy what was the protocol for touching children and picking them up and touching them? I also asked if that was allowed?” wrote a police officer in the order obtained by Us Weekly. “Timothy initially said, ‘It’s not allowed at all. there is no there is no protocol. I mean, I’m always around people, right?”
Busfield added that he does not “remember” ever tickling or holding the two child actors.
“If it happened, I don’t recall ever overtly tickling the boys, but it wouldn’t be unusual for me,” the agent wrote of the actor’s statement, which also claimed Busfield and Gilbert revealed they had “a relationship” with the alleged victims’ families outside of work and bought them Christmas presents.
Gilbert, meanwhile, has not publicly addressed the allegations, although he condemned the concept of child sexual abuse as “disgusting” weeks earlier.
“At this age, at this point, I’m nauseous,” she wrote a social media post from November 2025referring to his teenage daughter little house character acting opposite a 23-year-old in an on-screen romance. “She was expected to ‘fall in love’ and kiss a man in the film who was several years older than me. Through today’s lens, that’s shocking.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know is experiencing child abuse, call or text the Child Helpline at 1-800-422-4453.