Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield’s Hollywood romance has proven that it’s never too late to find love. The couple, who tied the knot in 2013, recently shared the secrets behind their romance.
Busfield And Gilbert’s Chance Meeting
The pair met in 2012 in a chance meeting at a bar. Busfield, who has starred in beloved Gen X hits like The West Wing and Field of Dreams, was meeting up with a friend when he spotted Gilbert at the bar.
“That was my drill, at eight o’clock, there was a bar right across from the Universal Studios that would open at eight and nobody would ever be in there. And then at 10 o’clock it would turn into a club,” the actor told People. “I would have the bar to myself for the first 45 minutes and I’d watch some sports and have a slice.”
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He continued,”I remember so clearly grabbing pizza and then looking in the door to make sure there wasn’t a lot going on. There was one person sitting at the bar and she had a fedora on, and I couldn’t tell who it was, but I knew it was problematic. And it’d been about eight months; I hadn’t been on a date and I was so happy and I was spooning with my pillow and really enjoying going to bed, not involved in a relationship.”
Gilbert Calls Busfield Her ‘Real And True Partner’
Busfield was coming off of his second divorce when he ran into Gilbert and was not looking to jump into another relationship, but after striking up a conversation, the pair immediately clicked. “I knew she was the one,” Busfield shared. “It felt so real.”
He and Gilbert, who herself just gotten divorced for the second time, met up for brunch the next morning, and have been inseparable ever since. “I am so blessed to walk through this life with a real and true partner,” the Little House on the Prairie actress wrote on Instagram in honor of their wedding anniversary in 2020. “The depth of understanding, compassion and kindness in this man blows me away. And oh, how we laugh! How blessed I am. How grateful.”
In a People interview, Gilbert added, “One of the greatest things Tim did was tell me [was], ‘If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.’ And that’s a really big deal for a kid actor because nobody ever told me that. It was [told], ‘I don’t care if you don’t want to, you’ve got to.'”
The couple now resides in upstate New York, where they have been renovating a mountain cottage for the past few years. Fans of Busfield and Gilbert are happy the actors have found love again!