Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert, 59, reveals how she learned to love grey hair – after ‘quitting’ Botox and glamorous Hollywood lifestyle for a quiet life in a remote cabin

• The Little House on the Prairie actress is leaning into the aging process 
• She previously revealed she ‘quit’ having cosmetic procedures, Botox and fillers
• READ MORE: Melissa Gilbert is rushed to the ER after reaction to an insect bite

While some women dread going gray, Little House on the Prairie actress Melissa Gilbert is taking it all in her stride.

In a new interview, the 59-year-old star, who famously quit Hollywood in order to move to a remote cabin in upstate New York in 2018, admitted that she was loving her silver-stranded hair and even described it as her ‘favorite thing ever.’

‘I actually cut eight inches off of my hair and they asked if they could keep my hair because they felt there were some customers that wanted to match my color,’ she said.

‘I love it and also I have so much more free time not worrying about coloring my hair. I let it grow out and match the root color about nine or eight years ago.’

Embracing the aging process: Melissa Gilbert (seen in June) isn’t shying away from going gray and has described her silver hair as her ‘favorite thing’ 

Out with the red: The Little House On The Prairie star has officially kissed goodbye to her signature red locks

Melissa is learning to fully embrace the aging process and has switched up her lifestyle to accompany her changing body.

Speaking to Prevention, she continued: ‘When I was younger not only was I always in a hurry… I didn’t really focus on self-care that much or being all that healthy because when you’re a kid and in your 20s I felt invincible, invisible is now – invincible [was] then.

‘As I age, I am more mindful about the exercise I do. You won’t see me in a kickboxing class now, but you’ll see me in yoga or walking. I need to stretch and strengthen, and I need to support my bones which are going to become gradually more fragile at this point in my life.’

Melissa’s positive outlook on growing older comes one year after she revealed she ‘quit’ struggling to retain her youth having previously used Botox and fillers.

‘I finally woke up and went: “What am I doing? I look like a carrot top, and I’m not happy,”’ she told People of her midlife change.

‘My mindset was: “You have to stay thin. You have to be seen in the right places, wear the right shoes and drive the right car,”‘ she explained. ‘That was so drilled into me by all the outside forces. But it never sat right.’

Melissa, whose adoptive parents were both actors, entered showbiz when she was just a little girl and got her big break at the age of nine.

From then on, she starred on the TV show Little House On The Prairie, which enjoyed a long run from 1974 to 1982.

Throwback: Melissa (pictured right) with her Little House On The Prairie co-stars Melissa Sue Anderson (left) and Sidney Greenbush

Child star: Melissa rose to fame on the TV show Little House On The Prairie, which enjoyed a long run from 1974 to 1982; pictured in 1978

After the series ended during her teen years, Melissa continued acting, but never landed a project that hit to the same degree as Little House On The Prairie.

She reflected: ‘I grew up in an industry that values the outside considerably more than the inside, and I was caught in that wheel of trying to stay young.’

Melissa tried to retain her youth with the help of cosmetic procedures, fillers, and Botox, until eventually in the mid-2010s she re-considered taking these measures, ultimately ‘quitting’ them altogether. 

She married her third husband, thirtysomething actor Timothy Busfield, in 2013 and moved with him to the small Michigan city of Howell.

Two years after the wedding, she had her breast implants removed, and then in 2016 she took the additional step of swearing off Botox.

In recent years, Melissa has taken a major step back from the glitz and glamor of Hollywood altogether, moving out of her Los Angeles home and relocating to a cabin in upstate New York, which she and Timothy purchased for $98,000 back in 2018.

They’ve lovingly dubbed their new home ‘The Cabbage,’ and it is where she was inspired to write her new book ‘Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade. A Life Rediscovered’ during the height of the pandemic.

‘Like everyone else, as we were going through that, eating all the comfort food and making all the sourdough bread, I was posting pictures of the meals we were eating, which were very comforting and wildly unhealthy, but lots of fun!’ she told Fox News in an interview last year.

Melissa and her husband Timothy Busfield ditched the dazzling lights of Hollywood for the Catskills after buying a 14-acre property in the mountains for $98,000 in 2018

Melissa swapped her $1.19 million LA home (pictured)  which featured a traditional celebrity feel with a large backyard pool – for the modest cottage in the Catskills 

‘Our lives are simple now, and there’s a sweetness to that simplicity. And with that simplicity comes a real love for stillness and living my life in a peaceful place.

Despite growing up in sunny Los Angeles, Melissa said she always knew at her ‘core’ that she ‘loved being in the outdoors’ and ‘around animals’ and enjoyed the ‘sweet, simple things in life.’ 

‘Once we got up here, once we got our land and started to look at all the things we could do with it, and then when lockdown happened, it unleashed all of this stuff inside me. There was a person who was dying to have this [new life],’ she shared. 

‘I still can’t believe this is what my life is like now. It’s heaven. I’m just so blessed.’ 

However, their dream house certainly didn’t start out as ‘heaven’ when the couple bought the property back in 2018. The fixer-upper wasn’t livable at first and required a lot of tender, love, and care from the couple to make it ‘home.’

‘This is one of those places that most people would say, ‘Are you nuts?’ if you expressed interest in buying it,’ she told The New York Times. ‘But Tim and I are the best kind of nuts. We’re hopeful visionaries.’ 

The small house had peeling stucco on the outside and was covered with mold and mildew and was home to a few mice, but they saw its ‘potential.’ 

‘[The house] had no heat, and the plumbing was kind of wonky. We had to empty all the stuff that was in the house because it was fully furnished, I mean, to the point where there was cereal in the cabinets and soap in the shower. It was like the people had just wrapped up out of the house and it sat there for decades like that,’ she told Fox News.

‘Once we cleaned all of that stuff out, we put the wood-burning stove to warm it before we put in an actual heating system. There was so much cleaning. I remember my husband with a bucket just cleaning the ceilings with hydrogen peroxide and Clorox. We scrubbed that place within an inch of its life.’

Melissa’s blissful life in the country hit another hurdle two months ago, when she revealed was forced to spend one night in the emergency room in New York after suffering from an insect bite that left her with an abscess and cellulitis.

Ouch: Melissa paid a trip to ER after an insect bite left her arm ‘incredibly swollen, red and hot’ 

ER time: The actress urged her Instagram followers about how bug bites should be taken seriously

An abscess is a painful collection of pus, usually caused by a bacterial infection, and according to the NHS, can develop anywhere in the body.

Cellulitis is a common, potentially serious bacterial skin infection, according to the Mayo Clinic.

At the time, the actress revealed she had been bitten by an unknown ‘flying insect’ and that her arm immediately began swelling up, prompting her doctor and husband, Timothy Busfield, to urge her to rush to the ER.

While in hospital, Melissa updated her Instagram followers of her ideal and shared an image of the swollen bite.

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