Melissa Gilbert, best known for Little House on the Prairie, made a notable change online as her husband, actor Timothy Busfield, faced growing legal scrutiny: her Instagram account disappeared.
On January 13, as attention around Busfield’s whereabouts escalated, Gilbert’s Instagram page displayed the message, “Profile isn’t available.”
According to NBC News, investigators initially said they could not locate Busfield after he was accused of child sex abuse in New Mexico, prompting Albuquerque police to issue a warrant for his arrest. TMZ later reported on January 13 that Busfield surrendered to law enforcement.
Timothy Busfield Has Denied the Allegations
Busfield disputed the accusations in comments to TMZ, which published video of him shortly before he was taken into custody at his lawyer’s office.
He said he planned to “confront these lies,” adding, “I did not do anything to those little boys,” TMZ reported. According to TMZ, Busfield is accused of sexually abusing two child actors on The Cleaning Lady, a project he directed in New Mexico in 2022. The children were 7 and 8 at the time, and TMZ reported that their parents contacted Albuquerque police two years later, leading to a criminal investigation.
Busfield has appeared in several well-known films and TV series, including Field of Dreams and The West Wing.
Busfield’s attorney told TMZ that Warner Bros. conducted its own review and “concluded the evidence did not support the allegations.”
NBC News reported that Busfield told investigators “another actor on the show told him the mother of the boys was upset with Busfield when the children weren’t brought back for the final season of the show,” though that actor allegedly did not speak with investigators. NBC also reported that the alleged abuse spans a two-year period from 2022 to 2024.
Melissa Gilbert Said Meeting Busfield Felt “Right and Inevitable”
Gilbert and Busfield met at a bar in 2012, and Busfield was initially drawn to her smile.
“It sounds cliché to say it, but it really was like getting hit with a thunderbolt,” Gilbert told People in 2024. “It just seemed right and inevitable. The next morning when I woke up, my first thought was, ‘I’m going to marry him,’ and then my next thought was, ‘You’re a crazy person.’ ”
“Across the board, we were just equals in everything,” Busfield told People.
According to People, both had been married twice before. Gilbert has two children, and Busfield has three.
They later made their home in “a rustic cabin on 14 acres in the Catskill Mountains of New York,” People reported, quoting Gilbert as saying, “This is what I’ve always wanted.”
“This is one of those places that most people would say, ‘Are you nuts?’ if you expressed interest in buying it,” Gilbert said. “But Tim and I are the best kind of nuts. We’re hopeful visionaries. We knew this house would shelter us well and serve us well.”
