Months after revealing that she reunited with her “Little House on the Prairie” co-star, Melissa Sue Anderson, after decades of estrangement, Melissa Gilbert is sharing with the world how much her “sister’s” friendship means to her. After coming across a headline about Anderson titled, “The Original Mary Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie is Still Stunning Today,” Gilbert, who’s spent the last two seasons on Hallmark’s “When Calls The Heart,” posted a sincere message calling it “the absolute truth.”
Gilbert Reacts to a Flattering Story About Anderson
“Melissa is a true beauty,” Gilbert wrote on Instagram. “But it’s not just the outside of her, it’s what’s inside that makes her shine even more. She has been such a good and true confidante. Checking in, making sure I’m ok. I’m so glad that we have had the chance to reconnect and become real friends. As I’ve told her, we will forever be sisters. How could we not be? We hold each other’s childhoods in our hearts. No one else had the experiences we shared when we were “knee high to a grasshopper.”
“Peppermint sticks, tin cups, Johnny Johnson and Jasper the raccoon,” she continued, naming things from their time together on the show. “Ma and Pa and Mr Edwards. That horrible teacher who smacked me with the ruler. Rescuing puppies from the lake. Sitting across from each other in our school room with Mrs Miniear, our set teacher.”
A Long History of Estrangement
Gilbert, 62, and Anderson, 63, starred as Laura and Mary Ingalls on the popular series that ran from 1974 through 1983. Despite playing sisters and only being a couple of years apart, the two weren’t close. In her 2010 memoir, “How I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House,” Anderson barely mentioned her. “I honestly do not have a lot of memories of the two of us,” she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We were very, very different.”
There was no love lost for Gilbert, either. When she appeared on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” in 2014, she didn’t mince words.
“Melissa Sue Anderson and I were just not too awfully close. Ever. Even for a moment. She was hateful, horrid, mean, terrible, mean, difficult. She hated me. She hit me — she knocked me off the wagon when I was nine.”
Finding Their Way Back to Each Other
But that was then. With a little time and perspective, the two were finally able to see each other in a new light. After slowly reconnecting, Gilbert wrote that Anderson came to see her performance in “Pen Pals” in December, 2025. They finally had the friendship and bond they’d always hoped for.
“Truth be told, I really looked up to her,” Gilbert added in her post. “She was so graceful and pretty and I was so buck-toothed and goofy. And now here we are. All this life experience under our belts. Absolute contemporaries. Fully able to appreciate our forever connection. Sending so much love to my “forever sister” today.”
It’s awesome that 2 “sisters ” who grew up in the public eye were able to gain what they should have had during their time on the show. Love the show and hoping my granddaughter picks up some manners from it, lol. Love the actors too