Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert has revealed the real reason why she decided to leave ‘unsafe’ Hollywood to live in a remote cottage in the Catskill mountains.
The actress, 60, was skyrocketed into the spotlight when she was just a kid thanks to her role as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the hit series.
After that came to an end, she continued to act – starring in a series of movies and TV shows over the years.
However, in 2013, she shocked the world when she announced that she was leaving Los Angeles behind to move into a farm house in Michigan; she then relocated into a mountain cottage in upstate New York with her husband, Timothy Busfield in 2019.
Now, the former child star has opened up about why she decided to make the move, explaining to Page Six that it felt like Hollywood was too ‘anti-aging.’
‘I just didn’t feel like that was a safe place for me to age,’ she said.
She recalled feeling immense pressure to look youthful and ‘stay a size two.’
But since leaving the razzle and dazzle of California behind, she said she has learned to embrace her aging.
Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert has revealed the real reason why she decided to leave ‘unsafe’ Hollywood to live in a remote cottage in the Catskill mountains
The actress, 60, was skyrocketed into the spotlight when she was just a kid thanks to her role as Laura Ingalls Wilder on the hit series, but she left Hollywood in 2019
‘I went from, “Oh God, I better not get older,” to, “Oh God, I’m so glad I’m older,”‘ she continued.
‘I love the age I am right now. 60 has been the most incredible year, just to look back on all the things I’ve done and to know that I’ve earned my opinions, I have value, I am wise.
‘I have done so much and I continue to do it and it’s not over by any stretch of the imagination.’
Melissa also made it clear that she has nothing against LA, where she lived most of her life, stating, ‘I do love so much about Los Angeles.
‘It just wasn’t the right place for me to live in any longer but it will always be my hometown.’
Melissa returned to the screen earlier this month for the first time in over a decade in the show When Calls The Heart.
The series has a special connection to Little House on the Prairie, as its executive producer is Michael Landon Jr., son of late Michael Landon, who played Pa on the iconic family show.
In November she launched an app for her Modern Prairie lifestyle brand targeted toward older women.
Now, the former child star (seen with her husband in 2020) has opened up about why she decided to make the move, explaining that she felt like Hollywood was too ‘anti-aging’
She recalled feeling immense pressure to look youthful and ‘stay a size two,’ adding, ‘I just didn’t feel like that was a safe place for me to age.’ She’s seen in Little house on the Prairie
She cofounded Modern Prairie with retail and merchandising expert Nicole Haase.
Melissa – who underwent multiple plastic surgery procedures throughout her career – previously told Fox News that she opted to make the move to upstate New York so that she finally could be free in her own skin.
‘This is me now – no hair color, no filler, no implants, no Botox. I just take care of myself. I try to eat as well as I can. I drink a lot of water. And I’m really enjoying the aging process because of that,’ she said.
‘[Aging] is an uphill battle. Eventually, everyone loses. It just does not fit in with who I am and what my life is now. It’s exhausting and it’s unnecessary.
‘I had to find a place within myself where I could stop trying to, or feeling like I needed to be what everybody else wanted me to be and be exactly who I am.’
She also told Yahoo that the decision came to her after she looked back at old photos and didn’t even recognize herself.
She recalled thinking, ‘Who is that person? That’s not me. That’s like a shell over what the real me is.’
Melissa admitted that she was also having a ‘hard time’ living her life in a place where the ‘external mattered more than the internal.’
But since leaving the razzle and dazzle of California behind, she said she has learned to embrace her aging. She and husband Timothy Busfield are seen at their house
‘I went from, “Oh God, I better not get older,” to, “Oh God, I’m so glad I’m older,”‘ she continued. ‘I love the age I am right now. 60 has been the most incredible year’
The couple purchased their 14-acre property for $98,000 in 2018 and spent about a year renovating it before moving in in 2019
‘I really wanted to reverse that. I wanted to become more spiritual, more grounded, more at peace, more connected to my community, to my family, to my friends,’ she explained.
The couple purchased their 14-acre property for $98,000 in 2018 and spent about a year renovating it before moving in in 2019.
The 58-year-old now spends her days raising chickens and growing her own food at her new home.
Melissa explained that starring in Little House as a kid inspired her to want to live so close to nature.
‘I actually feel like Little House On The Prairie was sort of the bait that opened my eyes to what could be,’ she told Yahoo.
‘I would be on the set, especially when we were outdoors with the chickens and then the frogs and the pond and horses and cows, and everybody had their dogs with them.
‘I was outside in Simi Valley on the ranch and it was always dusty, always dirty, but [I was] just gleeful and happy.’
She also told Fox that she always knew at her ‘core’ that she ‘loved being in the outdoors’ and ‘around animals’ and enjoyed the ‘sweet, simple things in life.’
‘Our lives are simple now, and there’s a sweetness to that simplicity. And with that simplicity comes a real love for stillness and living my life in a peaceful place,’ she gushed.
‘Once we got up here, once we got our land and started to look at all the things we could do with it, and then when lockdown happened, it unleashed all of this stuff inside me. There was a person who was dying to have this [new life].
‘I still can’t believe this is what my life is like now. It’s heaven. I’m just so blessed.’