Melissa Gilbert Abandoned California to Move to Michigan After Meeting Timothy Busfield

Melissa Gilbert traded sunny California for snowy Michigan after she met her future husband Timothy Busfield. 

Melissa Gilbert moved to Michigan after meeting Timothy Busfield

The Little House on the Prairie star and The West Wing actor connected during a chance meeting at a bar in 2012. It was love at first sight for the pair, he told OWN in 2014. But there was one catch.

“We met and we immediately fell in love,” Busfield explained as he and Gilbert offered a tour of their quaint 19th-century home in the small town of Howell. “[But] I didn’t live in LA, I lived in Michigan. I said, ‘I got good news and bad news.’ The good news is, I think you’re fantastic. She said, ‘What’s the bad news?’ I said, ‘I live in Michigan.’ She said, ‘That’s OK.’”

Busfield and Gilbert – who’d both been married twice before – tied the knot in 2013. Relocating to the Midwest was a big change for Gilbert, who grew up in Southern California. But she loved that her new home was so different from LA, she said. 

“Everything is easier [in Michigan],” Gilbert said. “It’s just more peaceful. It’s just more comfortable.”

‘Little House on the Prairie’ star was ‘done’ with life in Los Angeles 

One thing that made the transition from California to Michigan easier for Gilbert? The former child star was ready to take a break from the pressure of Hollywood, she explained in a 2019 interview with WFSB.

“I met Tim and he was living in Michigan and I said, ‘Take me.’ I was just done,” she said. 

Busfield grew up in Michigan, and he said there were certain advantages to being away from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. Gilbert’s son Michael, whom she shares with ex Bruce Boxleitner, was “struggling a little bit in high school,” Busfield told WFSB, but after moving to Michigan, he thrived.

“LA can be overwhelming,” he added. “Especially in our business.”

While the pair seemed content with their life in Michigan, they eventually decided it was time for another change. They moved to New York City in 2018 and later bought a dilapidated property in the Catskills.

“This is one of those places that most people would say, ‘Are you nuts?’ if you expressed interest in buying it,” Gilbert told The New York Times. “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.”

A few years later, that home was raided by U.S. Marshals as part of an investigation into child sex abuse charges against Busfield. Agents forced themselves into the cabin with a battering ram, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Nothing was seized during the raid, and neither Busfield nor Gilbert were present at the time.  

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