Melissa Gilbert has staunchly defended her husband and fellow actor Timothy Busfield in her first interview since New Mexico prosecutors charged him with child sexual abuse in early February.
In part of a conversation scheduled to be broadcast on Monday on Good Morning America but circulated in advance as a preview, Gilbert told ABC host George Stephanopoulos that she believed the Emmy winner whom she married in 2013 to be “the last person in the world who would hurt a child”.
The former Little House on the Prairie cast member also suggested Busfield would have problems with her that were more serious than any prison sentence could be if he hurt children.
“This has been the most traumatizing experience of our lives – our life as we knew it is done,” Gilbert said to Stephanopoulos. “We are grieving what we had. All of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our projects … for Tim, it’s done.
“He’s canceled and this will never – even if he’s exonerated, he will always be that guy.”
Gilbert’s remarks came about two months after a grand jury in Albuquerque, New Mexico’s largest city, handed up an indictment charging Busfield with four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child.
A related criminal complaint filed against Busfield accused him of inflicting the acts at the center of the case between November 2022 and the spring of 2024 on the set of the TV drama series The Cleaning Lady, for which he was a director and actor.
Busfield, 68, was accused of inappropriately touching one boy in particular over his clothing once when the child was seven years old and another time at age eight. The boy’s twin brother also reported allegedly being touched by Busfield.
The former Revenge of the Nerds, West Wing and Field of Dreams star later pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He also dismissed the accusations as “all lies” in a video shared with entertainment outlet TMZ.
Despite his assertion of innocence, Albuquerque authorities have cited what they portray as a pattern of sexual misconduct amid Busfield’s work. Prosecutors’ filings detailed an allegation against the actor that he groped a 16-year-old girl while she auditioned at Sacramento’s B Street Theatre, which he co-founded. The court filings said the matter concluded with Busfield going to therapy and the girl’s family agreeing not to take the matter to police.
Then, in 1994, a 17-year-old extra on the movie Little Big League claimed Busfield assaulted her after serving her alcohol. Busfield, a star of Little Big League who had won an Emmy for his performance on Thirtysomething three years earlier, maintained he was being extorted and settled the allegations privately. Yet he was ordered to pay $150,000 in costs after he unsuccessfully argued that the claims against him had been fabricated.
A 28-year-old woman separately alleged in 2012 that Busfield fondled her at a Los Angeles movie theater. Busfield indicated the act was consensual, and neither a criminal case nor civil litigation was brought against him.
Gilbert’s comments to Stephanopoulos echoed a statement she previously issued in which she said she supported her husband but had been advised to otherwise avoid speaking publicly while the child molestation allegations against him were unresolved. Busfield is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in May 2027 – he has been allowed to await that proceeding from out of New Mexico authorities’ custody.
Stephanopoulos asked Gilbert, 61, why she was now speaking out. She replied: “It’s time.”
