'Little House on the Prairie' star admits it was 'horrible' dating Rob Lowe during his heartthrob era
Melissa Gilbert is reflecting on her past love life.
During an appearance on the "I Choose Me With Jennie Garth" podcast, the "Little House on the Prairie" star got candid about navigating fame from a young age and explained how dating Rob Lowe impacted her view on relationships moving forward.
"I guess looking back on those six years, I mean, I was such a baby when Rob and I were together," said Gilbert, who dated Lowe on and off from when she was 17 to 23. "It was very tumultuous. I felt like a bit of an old sage in the business at that point because I'd been doing it for so long. And I was still on ‘Little House on the Prairie’ when we met, and it had already 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 was prepared for the stuff that came with it, necessarily. I was prepared for all of having to go to premieres and things and award shows and all of that, but I wasn't prepared for the fandom and, frankly, the girls."
"I always thought that every girl and woman was my sister. We're sisters, but it was not evident at all when Rob and I were a couple. I mean, it was like I didn't exist. They just pushed right past me and stuck phone numbers in his pockets and stuff."
Gilbert admitted that period of her life was difficult.
"To say it was disconcerting is doing it a big disservice," she said. "It was hard and horrible."
A representative for Lowe did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
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Despite the challenges, Gilbert said the relationship helped her learn a lot about desires when it came to finding love.
"I think I learned a lot about what didn't work for me, actually, and what I wouldn't stand for later on," she said. "They're hard because they usually are born of heartbreak and angst, but those are really valuable and important lessons… We had some really, really, really fun times."
Last year, Gilbert - who landed the role of Laura Ingalls Wilder at the age of 9 - opened up about her decision to leave Hollywood.
"All of the pressures, I faced all of them," Gilbert explained to People magazine at the time. "When you live in Los Angeles, it’s like living at the mall when you work at the mall. Literally, everyone is in the business. When you walk into a restaurant, every head turns to see who walked in. Everybody's always looking, curious, competing and that's a really difficult thing, especially for a female actor. It puts a lot of pressure on staying thin and staying young, and really it makes it hard to feel comfortable in one's own skin, because [of] the aging process."
"No matter how much we push it downstream, it's inevitable," she continued. "So are you going to age comfortably and happily? Are you going to fight it, be unhealthy and feel like there's something wrong with you for aging and that you're defective because you've gotten older?"
Gilbert and her husband, actor Timothy Busfield, moved to Michigan in 2013. The actress spent the next few years without Botox or facial fillers. She even had her breast implants removed in 2015.
The 60-year-old film producer emphasized aging is a "blessing."
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"I had to get out of there [L.A.], because it felt like I was not being authentically myself," she told People. "In the five years that I was in Michigan, all of that stopped. … I stopped everything and just focused on being as physically and emotionally healthy as I could. And I think that shows, ‘Yes, I'm aging, but it's not a curse — it's a blessing.’"
Fox News Digital's Lauryn Overhultz contributed to this report.