Timothy Busfield thinks his wife, Melissa Gilbert, is “an idiot” for being with him.
The “Thirtysomething” actor says his favorite thing about being married to the “Little House on the Prairie” star is that she “chose me, what an idiot, what an idiot, talk about gullible!” he joked.
But what he actually loves the most about Gilbert, whom he married in 2013, is her “sense of humor.”
“Her grandfather [Harry Crane] created ‘The Honeymooners,’ the Dean Martin roast and she is funny,” he rhapsodized. “She’s got a lot of great qualities, the sincerity, the Laura Ingalls Wilder side of her is not the side I see.
“I see the union leader, the funny woman who was raised Jewish by a funny Jewish family.”
He said Melissa’s sister, “Roseanne” star Sara Gilbert,” is also “funny, they’re all just funny, her mom. They just all have a great sense of humor and a lot of people wouldn’t know that about her.”
He also likened Gilbert, who recently underwent spinal surgery, to Snow White for her ability to bond with wild animals at their house in upstate New York.
“I convinced her to stop trying to be friends with a bear, that was hard,” he said. “I just kept on insisting the bear wasn’t as interested in being a friend as her blood type. I know it looks sweet … and she actually fed a deer out of her own hands the other day, she’s like Snow White, you know with the birds and the deer and there is a porcupine and raccoons, they all love her and come around. The yard is just a menagerie. When I come out, they run. … They don’t want any part of me.”
Busfield can currently be seen in “For Life,” an ABC drama loosely based on a falsely imprisoned man who became an attorney and helped overturn wrongful convictions for himself and over a dozen fellow inmates.
The 63-year-old actor said current affairs have really upped the writing on the show.
“We just did a table read for Episode 7 and it’s Black Lives Matter,” he said. “We can get it out and use it.”
When not raising chickens upstate, Busfield and Gilbert live in Manhattan, where he says he’s the more recognized celeb.
“When we’re in New York City, I actually get recognized more, between ‘Thirtysomething,’ ‘West Wing’ and ‘Field of Dreams,’ it’s just a town where I’ve always had a little bit more and I like to rub it in her face. I’ll do that, she’ll call me an a–hole,” he said with a laugh.