Melissa Gilbert Breaks Silence: ‘Enough Is Enough’ as Third Former Child Actor Dies in Two Years

Melissa Gilbert has had enough, and isn’t afraid to say it. The Little House on the Prairie star and former child actress is speaking up following the deaths of Hayden Panettiere, Daveigh Chase, and Michelle Trachtenberg.

Gilbert published a gut-wrenching post on her Substack over the weekend, entitled ‘Enough is Enough’, writing, “Three former female actors of the same generation are gone. Tragically, heartbreakingly, agonizingly too soon.”

She continued, “They are gone and the question I have been turning over and over in my head is, “WHY?”. Why are these three sweet, wildly talented, vibrant, vital young women gone?”

Even though Gilbert didn’t know Panettiere and had, in her words, “only worked briefly with Mishy and Daveigh,” she still took their deaths personally. Why? According to the star, “It feels personal because I was them. As were Tatum, Kristy, Brooke, Patty, Anyssa, Dakota, Elle, Shirley, Britney, Jodie, Drew, and my sister Sara, to name a few…We are all members of the same tribe.”

The “Female Former Child Performer” (a term she dubs in this piece) explains that stories of the entertainment industry exploiting and abusing child actors aren’t new. But she cautions, “this trend is getting worse. My thinking is that it is tied to the invention of the mobile phone,” adding, “Now everyone is a paparazzo. There is no privacy.”
While she points a finger at celebrity clickbait culture and the disintegrating expectation of a private life, the actress also digs deep into the media machine that is Hollywood.

In a heartbreaking confession, Gilbert shares her past trauma as a child actor: “I can’t tell you how many times I worked when horribly sick, injured, or worse. My father died when I was just eleven years old, and I was back working on Little House within months. And not a single adult on that set discussed it with me or offered condolences. I later found out that the fear was I would become too upset to work.”

What is Gilbert’s solution? She suggests, “We need to work with the studios and networks to establish accessible free mental health support for all child actors as they transition into young adulthood… Maybe we start collectively speaking up and admonishing the media for its unbounded exploitation…Maybe we get a ribbon on red carpets that simply says, ‘ENOUGH.'”

Gilbert isn’t the only former child star to publicly chastise the entertainment industry in the wake of Panettiere’s death. Actress Anna Paquin recently shared an emotional Instagram post, advocating for change, writing, “We were not as protected by the “systems” that look great on paper, as we are supposed to be.”