Melissa Gilbert shared a cryptic post about injustice and accountability less than one week before her husband, Timothy Busfield, was issued an arrest warrant for alleged child sex abuse.
“You seem to have a mistaken discomfort for injustice,” an anonymous quote shared via Gilbert’s Instagram page on Monday, January 5, read, alongside with hashtags for “Fragility,” “You Know Who You Are” and “That’s Right, I’m Looking at You.”
Gilbert, 61, further explained her reasoning for sharing the message in the comments section.
“Basically this comment about playing the victim and blaming others. It’s about not taking accountability for your own situation,” she stated. “It’s about being a big whiny baby. I saw this quote and it struck me.”
The Little House on the Prairie alum continued, “I have a particularly hard time with people who play the victim. Own your s***. Step up. It’s all pretty general. Has nothing to do with politics but everything to do with privilege, attitude and weakness.”
While Gilbert did not concretely reveal the inspiration for her upload, she noted it was “definitely not” about Venezuela. (The United States military captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife earlier this month, indicting the dictator on narco-terrorism charges. Maduro pleaded not guilty to all counts.)
News broke four days later that Busfield, 68, was named in an arrest warrant after being accused of child sexual abuse by two minors he worked with on the set of The Cleaning Lady. The West Wing actor was not immediately arrested and claimed in an investigation interview cited in the arrest warrant that it was “highly unlikely” he had physical contact with the accusers.
“I did ask Timothy what the protocol was for touching children and picking them up and touching them? I also asked if that was allowed?” a police officer wrote in the warrant obtained by Us Weekly. “Timothy initially said, ‘It’s not allowed at all. There is no, there’s no protocol. I mean, I’m always around people, right?”
Busfield reportedly added that he doesn’t “remember” ever tickling or picking up the two child actors.
“If it happened, I don’t remember overtly tickling the boys ever, but it wouldn’t be uncommon for me,’” the officer wrote of the actor’s statement, also claiming Busfield and Gilbert revealed that they had “a relationship” with the alleged victims’ families outside of work and bought them Christmas presents.
Gilbert, for her part, has not publicly addressed the accusations, though did condemn the concept of child sexual abuse as “disgusting” weeks earlier.
“At this age, at this time, I am actually nauseated,” she wrote in a November 2025 social media post, referring to her teen Little House character acting opposite a 23-year-old in an onscreen romance. “[I was] was expected to ‘fall in love with’ and kiss a man on film who was several years older than [I] was. Through the lens of today, this is shocking.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know is experiencing child abuse, call or text Child Help Hotline at 1-800-422-4453.
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