Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield have been married since 2013, less than one year after they started dating
Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield have been married since 2013 after each having longstanding careers in Hollywood.
“Our business in Los Angeles is very difficult because it’s everywhere in that city [and] everybody’s involved in it in some way,” Gilbert, best known for starring as Laura Ingalls on The Little House on the Prairie, said during a 2019 interview on Better Connecticut. “There’s a really strange external pressure to look a certain way.”
Gilbert continued, “[When] I met Tim, he said he was living in Michigan, and I said, ‘Take me.’ I was just done. I wanted to age.”
Gilbert was previously married to Bo Brinkman from 1998 to 1994 and Bruce Boxleitner, with whom the actress shares two children, from 1995 to 2011.
Busfield, for his part, was married to Radha Delamarter from 1981 to 1986 and Jenny Merwin from 1988 to 2007. The West Wing actor shares son Wilson with Delamarter, as well as two younger children with Merwin.
Amid the pair’s 13-year marriage, news broke in January 2026 that an arrest warrant was issued for Busfield after allegations of child sex abuse. He surrendered to police less than one week later and denied the claims, while Gilbert stood by his side.
Keep scrolling for Gilbert and Busfield’s relationship timeline:
Gilbert and Busfield started dating after they met in a bar in Los Angeles.
“I remember so clearly grabbing pizza and then looking in the door to make sure there wasn’t a lot going on,” Busfield recalled to People in 2022. “There was one person sitting at the bar and she had a fedora on, and I couldn’t tell who it was.”
Busfield subsequently introduced himself to Gilbert, and they spoke throughout the evening.
