Melissa Gilbert's Life Wasn't Easy After Her Divorce From Bruce Boxleitner

Melissa Gilbert has been in the public eye since she was a child actor in "Little House on the Prairie" from 1974 – 1983, and her private life has been as headline-making as her acting career. The former child star was linked with  80s heartthrobs Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, and Scott Baio before tying the knot with Bo Brinkman in 1988 and having a son, Dakota, with him. While that marriage didn't work out, she married actor Bruce Boxleitner in 1995, just one year after her divorce from Brinkman.

In her 2009 tell-all "Prairie Tales," Gilbert detailed her low-key, paparazzi-free second wedding to Boxleitner, which took place on January 1, 1995, in her mother's Los Angeles living room with just a few dozen guests. Gilbert gave birth to the couple's son, Michael, later that year.

But 16 years later, the marriage was over. In August 2011, Gilbert issued a statement to Us Weekly to confirm her split from Boxleitner. "We have loved each other for a very long time and we share four incredible sons together," she said of their four children from their various marriages. Gilbert requested that she pay no spousal support to her ex in her divorce filing.

Melissa Gilbert was 47 when she divorced Bruce Boxleitner, and the split caused her to go through a midlife crisis. In an interview with Page Six, Gilbert opened up about her post-divorce choices. "It was like, I lost my mind," she told the outlet. "One of my friends says, 'You know, every once in a while we all have to go to the zoo. And you went and now you're back.'"

In her 2022 memoir "Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade," Gilbert explained that she attempted to recapture her youth after her divorce. "I had Botox, fillers, recolored my hair and bought a Mustang convertible at the urging of the inappropriately young French dude I began dating,"  she wrote in her book. Gilbert also admitted that she jumped into a new relationship with a younger guy who came with a ton of red flags.

The "Little House on the Prairie" alum finally had a wake-up call when a roof collapsed above her patio, causing her to suffer a concussion and forcing her to reflect on her life in the fast lane — and the bad example she was setting for her sons. "My life clearly wasn't working," she wrote. "I couldn't be with inappropriate dudes anymore. I couldn't continue to do these things to my face and my body. I had to figure out who I was and where I was headed and what was good and healthy for me."

After two failed marriages and a young French beau, Melissa Gilbert started a new life with actor Timothy Busfield after meeting him at a bar. In an interview with People, the former "The West Wing" star said he knew that first night that Gilbert was the one. "It felt so real," he said.

The two wed in 2013 and ultimately moved out of the Hollywood spotlight and into a fixer-upper in the Catskill Mountains. Gilbert admitted that some people thought it was "nuts" for her to buy a rustic, New York cottage that needed a ton of TLC. "But Tim and I are the best kind of nuts," she said in a 2022 interview with The New York Times. "We're hopeful visionaries. We knew this house would shelter us well and serve us well." Gilbert told People of her new, quiet lifestyle, "This is what I've always wanted." 

Far away from the Hollywood spotlight, Gilbert, now 59, seems to have found her "Prairie Tale" ending –- even if she did have to hit some road bumps to get there. "Tim says it to me all the time, I wouldn't be the woman I am today if one thing had gone differently," she told Page Six. "It's kind of hard to look back and want to have changed anything."