Melissa Gilbert Interview on Husband Timothy Busfield After Arrest

Melissa Gilbert believes her husband Timothy Busfield will be exonerated of the child sex abuse allegations he is facing.

The actor and director has been charged with four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child on the set and is awaiting trial. He’s been accused of sexually abusing two boys on the set of the former Fox/Warner Bros. Television series The Cleaning Lady.

“[This has been] hell. This has been the most traumatizing experience of our lives,” Gilbert said on Monday’s Good Morning America, in her first sit-down interview with co-anchor George Stephanopoulos, alongside Busfield’s civil attorney Larry Stein. “Our life as we knew it is done. We are grieving what we had. All of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our projects. For Tim, it’s done. He’s canceled. Even if he’s exonerated, he will always be that guy. The last person in the world who would hurt a child.”

She added, “And believe me, if I thought for a second that Tim Busfield hurt a child, he’d have a lot more to worry about than prison.”

She said she has no doubts of his innocence, but hopes for an apology and an exoneration. “I know this man in my bones. No one knows him better than I do,” she said. “Our marriage has… we’ve had a lot of ups and downs. We’ve been through struggles. We’ve had our own issues to deal with, and we’ve worked through everything. He is nothing if not completely honest with me. I trust him with my children’s lives, with my grandchildren’s lives, my nieces and nephews. He is an honorable, caring, generous human being.”

Gilbert said she chose to speak out now to address the “untruths” they have been reading about and hearing. “I am 100 percent he will be exonerated,” she said, “but I will tell you that there is a practical side to this and we have to be prepared for all scenarios.”

Busfield has denied allegations. The charges against Busfield relate to alleged touching on two separate occasions, once in October 2022 and again in September 2023. Each count carries a minimum sentence of three years, which can’t be suspended or deferred. Busfield was released from jail after his arrest.

Busfield’s defense has revolved around arguments that the parents of the twin boys were looking for vengeance against Busfield for recasting them in the fourth season of the Fox series after they aged out of their roles. “When they were fired, they assumed Tim was responsible for it. The truth is he was not,” said Stein on GMA. Stein was asked about a claim in the criminal complaint that Busfield and Gilbert bought the twin child actors Christmas gifts, and Stein said gifts were given to multiple children at a Christmas party. “Tim did not give the boys gifts. Melissa gave them gifts,” he said. “Every child at the Christmas party, not treating them special or different than anyone.”

Gilbert and Busfield married in 2013. Also in her interview, Gilbert said she was, however, aware of separate allegations against her husband that were included in the child sex abuse criminal complaint to allege a pattern. The Thirtysomething and West Wing star was accused of sexual assault by two women in 1994 and 2012; charges were not brought in either case. “These allegations have been out in the ether for a very long time,” she said. “I am neither naive nor am I complicit. I talked to him about it. I asked him questions about it. I heard his side of the story, which no one has ever heard, which is the truth. 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.”

Busfield’s trial is tentatively set for May 2027 in New Mexico.

ABC News reached out to the parents of the children. In a statement to ABC News, the district attorney’s office said its focus “remains on the victims.”