Melissa Gilbert Quits New York City Amid Timothy Busfield’s Sex Abuse Scandal

“Little House on the Prairie” star Melissa Gilbert has revealed that she has officially moved out of her longtime New York City apartment and into her beloved cabin in the Catskills, hinting that the decision to quit the Big Apple was prompted by husband Timothy Busfield‘s ongoing sex abuse scandal.

Gilbert, 62, shared the news of her relocation in an Instagram post, revealing several images and videos of herself packing up the Upper West Side property, including one snap that showed her lying on the ground of the apartment while surrounded by carefully labeled boxes.

In her caption, the actress took the time to pay tribute to the city, noting that she has spent eight “wonderful” years living in the apartment, while completing “a lot of amazing work” in the Big Apple.

She then vowed to return to the city in the future, while hinting at the key reason for her move, writing: “I promise we will be back it’s just that right now…..well….you know.”

The actress did not mention her husband by name, only alluding to the fact that he is moving with her by her use of the word “we” instead of “I.”

Their move comes amid a particularly turbulent time for the couple, whose upstate New York home was raided by armed federal agents in January, less than an hour after Busfield turned himself in to a police station in New Mexico, where he stands accused of inappropriately touching minors between October 2022 and September 2023.

In February, “The West Wing” actor was indicted by a grand jury in the state on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor. He pled not guilty to all charges and is now trying to overturn the indictment, alleging “prosecutorial misconduct during grand jury proceedings,” according to court documents seen by People magazine.

Gilbert has steadfastly supported her husband throughout the scandal, revealing in an April interview with “Good Morning America” that she believes he will be “exonerated,” while stating that Busfield will share “his side of the story” when he is ready.

“I heard his side of the story—which nobody has ever heard—which is the truth,” she said. “And when the time is right, and that is not now, Tim will tell the truth of all of these past allegations when he needs to.”

In the meantime, it appears Busfield will join his spouse, whom he wed in 2013, at their cabin in Highland Lake, which sits on just over 40 acres.

The couple purchased the two-bedroom, one-bathroom dwelling for just $98,000 in January 2019, along with several additional parcels that now make up their impressive upstate spread, which Gilbert regularly showcases on social media.

Throughout the time since they bought the property, the duo has continued to maintain a home in New York City, where, Gilbert revealed in her latest Instagram post, they stayed whenever they needed to be in the area for work or to spend time with friends.

“So long perfect little one bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side,” she wrote in her caption. “The last eight years here have been so special. A lot of amazing work was done in and around this city. So many theaters and soundstages. So many wonderful dinners with friends and nights out on the town.”

She went on to share some of her favorite things about the community where they were living, noting that she will “miss the walking and our neighborhood, the subway rides, the amazing people I’ve met there and on the streets.”

“This city truly has a pulse. You can feel it in your heart,” she continued. “Goodbye favorite newsstand, bodega, dance studio, and laundry. Goodbye shoe repair, dry cleaners, nail salon. Goodbye sweet neighbors whom we love so much. And a very fond ‘farewell and see you soon’ to our favorite city in the world.”

While Gilbert confessed that leaving her New York City home is somewhat bittersweet, she went on to express her excitement at being able to spend more time at her cabin property, which she has previously revealed she refers to as The Cabbage—a mix between “cabin” and “cottage.”

“Excited to live in our wonderful home upstate full time for a good long while,” she concluded the post.

The actress, who shot to fame while appearing as Laura Ingalls Wilder on “Little House on the Prairie,” revealed back in 2022 why she made the decision to buy the property—explaining that she fell in love with the rural lifestyle when Busfield took her to visit his home in Michigan.

However, when her husband first happened upon the Catskills property online, it was far from the idyllic upstate retreat it is today—telling Next Avenue that it “was sort of sad” when they viewed it for the first time.

“From the outside the house looked like it was carrying a lot of weight. Not literally sagging; it seemed like it was sort of sad,” she recalled.

Things to a turn for the worse when they walked inside, however, and were quickly greeted with a foul odor unlike anything Gilbert had ever smelled before.

“When we walked in the front door—I’ve smelled musty places, [but] I’ve never smelled anything like the smell that came from this house. It was overwhelming,” she revealed.

She noted that the cabin had been left completely abandoned by its previous owners, whose belongings were still strewn about its interior, including “boxes of cereal in the pantry, shampoo and bars of soap in the shower, and rotting deer heads on the walls.”

Remarkably, those weren’t the strangest things she and Busfield found, however, with the actress explaining that they uncovered several more unique items when they were renovating the dwelling.

“Bottles of holy water everywhere, which I don’t know if I want to understand,” she said of their weirdest discoveries. “Then in tearing it down and moving things around, we found porn, we found hidden bottles of booze—of course, to go with the holy water. Gotta have balance!”

Still, she and Busfield managed to see plenty of potential in the property—and they refused to be turned off by the smell or the smattering of strange objects secreted away within the dwelling. They spent close to a year on the renovation, completing the work in December 2019, enabling them to hunker down in the dwelling throughout the Covid pandemic that hit just a few months later.

“This is one of those places that most people would say, ‘Are you nuts?’ if you expressed interest in buying it,” Gilbert revealed in an interview with 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.”

The actress fell so in love with the rural lifestyle at the property that she penned a book about it, entitled “Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, A Life Rediscovered,” in which she detailed the couple’s renovation process—while also sharing tips for how to live a calmer, quieter life.