What to Know
Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert is joining the growing chorus of industry names appalled over Megyn Kelly’s recent comments about Jeffrey Epstein. During the Nov. 12 episode of her eponymous SiriusXM radio show, Kelly claimed that Epstein was “into the barely legal type.” She said that Epstein “liked 15-year-old girls” and “wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds.”
“He liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby,” Kelly said. “There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?”
Kelly faced immediate backlash from both political and Hollywood figures. Christina Ricci posted that Kelly is a “danger to children,” while the social media hashtag “#iWasFifteen” started being used by women online to share their own stories of how they dealt with inappropriate behavior from men at too young of an age.
Gilbert took part in the trend, sharing photos on Instagram from “Little House on the Prairie” when she was 15 years old and had a kissing scene with her older male co-star Dean Butler (who was about eight years older).
“I am actually nauseated,” Gilbert wrote alongside the photos, which started with an image of her at 15 while on vacation. “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.”
Gilbert said “thank god” for her mother and co-star and director Michael Landon, who were two of the many people on the “Little House” set that made sure she was safe during production. It’s important to note that at no point did Gilbert allege any misconduct took place on the “Little House” set. She concluded: “Can you imagine if I hadn’t had them all? I am so fortunate (Sort of). Many other young women aren’t. Megyn Kelly, you need to be careful with your words.”
This is not the first time Gilbert has taken aim at Kelly. At the start of the year, Gilbert fired back at Kelly over a comment the former Fox News host made about Netflix’s upcoming “Little House” remake. Gilbert was the star of NBC’s popular TV adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book series, which aired for nine seasons and 204 episodes between 1974 and 1982.
“Netflix, if you woke-ify ‘Little House on the Prairie’ I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project,” Megyn Kelly posted on X when news of the Netflix reboot first broke. Gilbert responded on Threads and encouraged Kelly to “watch any episode on any streaming platform anywhere in the world.”
“Apparently Megyn tweeted (I’m not on that platform) asking that Netflix not ‘woke-Ify’ their ‘Little House’ remake,” Gilbert added in a longer statement. “Ummm…watch the original again. 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.”
Rebecca Sonnenshine (“The Boys,” “Vampire Diaries,” “Archive 81”) is serving as showrunner and executive producer on Netflix’s “Little House on the Prairie” reboot. The series does not yet have a release date.
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Zack Sharf
Variety Entertainment News Service
Variety
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