Melissa Gilbert Opens Up About Romance With Rob Lowe: ‘It Was Like I Didn’t Exist’

Rob Lowe and Melissa Gilbert — Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert recently swung by the iHeart podcast studio to talk about her younger years with fellow former child star Jennie Garth on her I Choose Me podcast. During the conversation, Garth mentioned that they both had relationships with actors while they were young and how hard it is to navigate young love, even without Hollywood and other women in the mix.

Gilbert said that she dated actor Rob Lowe when she was around seventeen; they dated on and off for about six years. She said, “It was very tumultuous, you know, I felt like a bit of an old sage in the business at that point because I had been doing it for so long and I was still on Little House on the Prairie when we met, and it had already, you know, had been years, and he was sort of starting out. He’d done a little bit of television, and so I was able to sort of sit back and watch this meteoric rise happen. I don’t think I think I was prepared for the stuff they came with it.”

Melissa Gilbert with heart background graphic

Kristina Loggia/TV Guide/Everett Collection

“I wasn’t prepared for the fandom,” she added. “The stuff” was other women falling for the handsome Lowe. “It was like I didn’t exist,” Gilbert recalled. “They’d just pushed right past me and stick phone numbers in his pockets and stuff.”

In the relationship, she learned a lot about what didn’t work for her and what she wouldn’t stand for. Those lessons are usually born from heartbreak, she said, but added that they were very valuable lessons and that she still had some fun times with Lowe.

These days, she said she feels much calmer because at that time, she was always waiting for the shoe to drop or something bad to happen. She has been married to Timothy Busfield since 2013. Listen to the entire podcast here.