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After eight years in a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, a beloved television actress is moving out — and she’s doing it as her husband fights a criminal case that has upended the couple’s life.
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The actress is Melissa Gilbert, 62, best known as the star of “Little House on the Prairie,” and her husband is actor and director Timothy Busfield, 69. Busfield was first arrested on Jan. 13 on charges that included criminal sexual contact of a minor and child abuse, stemming from allegations that he inappropriately touched 11-year-old twin boys he had worked with on the Fox series “The Cleaning Lady,” where he served as an executive producer and director. A grand jury later indicted him on four felony counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor under the age of 13.
Allan Lundell via Wikimedia Commons / Bob Bekian from Thousand Oaks Ca via Wikimedia Commons
Busfield has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, with his attorney alleging prosecutorial misconduct during the grand jury proceedings and arguing that exculpatory evidence was suppressed. He is scheduled to appear in court for a status hearing on June 30, and his trial is set to begin in May 2027.
Gilbert, who married Busfield in 2013, has publicly stood by him throughout. In an April interview, she said she was “100 percent confident he will be exonerated.” She briefly deactivated her social media accounts after the allegations surfaced in January before returning in May.
Gilbert announced the move in an Instagram post on Tuesday, June 23, first reported by People, sharing photos of labeled moving boxes and one shot of herself stretched out on the floor beside them. Her caption was a wistful farewell to the neighborhood, listing everything she’d miss: the favorite newsstand and bodega, the dance studio and the laundry, the shoe repair shop, the nail salon, the dry cleaner, and the neighbors she and her family love “so much.”
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“So long perfect little one bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. The last eight years here have been so special,” she wrote, signing off with “a very fond ‘farewell and see you soon’ to our favorite city in the world.” She added a cryptic note about the timing — “I promise we’ll be back, it’s just that right now…well…you know” — and said she was excited to live full-time at the couple’s home upstate, a rustic cottage on 14 acres in the Catskills that the pair bought in 2018.Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
