Melissa Gilbert has once again defied popular Hollywood trends. The actress who tied the knot while wearing a red dress had her breast implants removed just a couple of days ago.
The Little House on the Prairie star noted in her blog, A Tale of Two Titties, the impending removal of both breast implants.
“I am concerned for my health and I don’t like the way they look or feel,” she writes. “Frankly, I’d like to be able to take a Zumba class without the fear that I’ll end up with two black eyes.”
She had the initial implant surgery when she was in her 20s. Now at 50, she has a whole new perspective.
.@MelissaEGilbert gets breast implants removed, says @DancingABC was bad for her body image: http://t.co/Q4fNFgbWP1 pic.twitter.com/oxQKX5IJul
— Yahoo Canada (@YahooCanada) January 8, 2015
Gilbert told People magazine that she got the implants after divorcing her first husband. He made her feel self-conscious about how her breasts looked after breast feeding their baby.
“Dating posed the terrifying prospect of the guy I chose to make love with next, undoing my bra and running away in abject terror,” she added in her blog.
She loved the results until she had a second child, and then went for another lift. She proudly showed the results of that surgery off in a low-cut gown at the 2011 SAG Awards.
“The irony of the fact that I was president of SAG when my breasts were doing the opposite of sagging is not lost on me,” she said.
Melissa Gilbert even spoke of the insecurity she felt while she was a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, and how she felt the whole experience was bad for her body image.
“I had spent most of my life pressured to look a certain way and I believed the hype,” she said.
She has certainly worked through the insecurity, however, and emerged on the other side with an amazing outlook–one that defies Hollywood standards but not her new beliefs.
“Most of the time, I’m really happy with the way I look. I’m enjoying aging. It’s not going badly either. My sweet husband [Timothy Busfield] is perfectly supportive of my decision to do this. He only wants me to be healthy,” she adds.
Surgery apparently went well. Melissa Gilbert shared word of its completion via Twitter.
In recovery. Surgery went great. No the recovery begins.
#boobies!
— Melissa Gilbert (@MelissaEGilbert) January 6, 2015
Kudos to Melissa Gilbert for growing out of her insecurity and becoming confident of her own natural beauty. May her body and soul continue to heal and may she enjoy many years of not only living a (likely) healthier life, but of setting an example for other women that beauty goes far deeper than a pair of breast implants.
