“Little House on the Prairie” star Melissa Gilbert explains why she turned her back on Hollywood: “I had to get out of there”

“Little House on the Prairie” star Melissa Gilbert “had to” leave Hollywood after becoming famous as a child star.

At the age of nine, Gilbert landed the role of Laura Ingalls Wilder, establishing her status as a rising star.

“I was faced with all the pressure,” Gilbert explained to People magazine. “Living in Los Angeles, it's like living in a mall while working in a mall. Literally. everyone is in this business. When you go into a restaurant, everyone turns around to see who came in. Everyone is always looking, curious, competing and that is really difficult, especially for an actress. It puts a lot of pressure to stay slim and young and it makes it really hard to be comfortable in your own skin because [of] the aging process.”

“No matter how much we delay it, it's inevitable,” she continued. “So are you going to age comfortably and happily? Are you going to fight it, live unhealthily, and feel like there's something wrong with aging and that you're defective because you've gotten older?”

Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert suffered a neurological disorder and had a “difficult” childhood

Gilbert and her husband, actor Timothy Busfield, moved to Michigan in 2013. The actress spent the next few years without Botox or facial fillers, and in 2015 she even had her breast implants removed.

The 60-year-old film producer stressed that age was a “blessing”.

“I had to get out of there [L.A.]because I felt like I wasn't myself,” she told People. “In the five years that I was at Michigan, that all stopped. … I dropped everything and just focused on being as healthy as I could physically and emotionally. And I think that shows, 'Yes, I'm aging, but that's not a curse — it's a blessing.'”

Melissa Gilbert played the lead role in Little House on the Prairie. (Ted Shepherd/NBCU Photo Database)

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Melissa Gilbert and her husband Timothy Busfield moved to Michigan in 2013. (Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)

In 2018, Gilbert and her husband purchased a vacation home in upstate New York.

The couple spent time renovating it before moving in.

“We spent our first night there, after everything was clean, on a mattress on the floor in the living room,” Gilbert recalled in a 2022 interview with Fox News Digital. “We were waiting for the refrigerator, washing machine, dishwasher and stove to be delivered. I just remember thinking at that moment, 'This is our home. This is going to be our home.' I think it was that night, that first night we slept there, that I realized, 'Oh God, this is really it. And we're going to do this ourselves. And it's going to be incredible.'”

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Melissa Gilbert and her husband bought a vacation home in upstate New York in 2018. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Gilbert admitted that she doesn't miss Hollywood.

“I miss my relatives and friends in Los Angeles. I miss them terribly,” the “Tenure” star explained. “I wish I could see them more often. I hope that as things start to open up again and we don't fall back, I will still have the freedom to visit them when I need to.”

“Late last summer, I was finally able to visit my mom. It was really amazing. I saw my kids and my granddaughter in LA. I miss them. I miss my friends there,” she said.

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