Melissa Gilbert is calling for major changes in how Hollywood treats young performers following the deaths of Hayden Panettiere, Michelle Trachtenberg and Daveigh Chase.
The Little House on the Prairie alum addressed the three women in an August 22 essay titled “Enough Is Enough”, writing that their deaths felt deeply personal even though she did not know Panettiere and had only worked briefly with Trachtenberg and Chase. Gilbert, who became a television star while still a child herself, described former female child performers as members of the same “tribe.”
“When three of us die so close together, something is very, very wrong,” Gilbert wrote. She used the losses to question whether young performers receive enough protection from professional pressure, invasive attention and inadequate support as they grow into adulthood.
Gilbert argued that children in entertainment should be able to refuse work when they are physically or emotionally struggling and called for broader changes involving mental health care, privacy and support from people who understand what it is like to grow up in the industry.
Gilbert Says Child Actors Are Taught to ‘Deliver No Matter What’
Gilbert argued that the entertainment industry often rewards child actors for behaving like adults when they are sick, grieving or exhausted. She wrote that young performers can be praised as “soldiers,” “machines” or “pros” for continuing to work, while saying no can create fears about being labeled difficult.
Her own childhood provided one of the essay’s starkest examples. Gilbert’s father died when she was 11, yet she returned to work on Little House on the Prairie within months. She said no adult on the set discussed his death with her or offered condolences because there was concern that talking about it could make her too upset to work, according to PEOPLE.
Gilbert said that experience helped establish a pattern of continuing to work regardless of her physical or emotional condition. At 22, she underwent an emergency appendectomy while filming in Portland, Oregon, and returned to the production three days later. She continued working after developing a severe fever, finished her scenes and flew home, where she was hospitalized while, she said, on the verge of sepsis.
She described working through other illnesses and injuries over the years because she feared creating production problems or being considered unreliable. For Gilbert, that mentality illustrates why young performers need permission to behave like children. “These young professionals are children, and we should make sure they are allowed to be children,” Gilbert wrote. “They should be allowed to say ‘no.’”
She Wants Better Mental Health Support and More Privacy
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Gilbert also criticized how little privacy young stars can have once they become famous. She argued that smartphone cameras eliminated many of the spaces where celebrities previously could escape professional photographers and said performers can now be recorded in restaurants, stores, schools and other everyday settings.
Panettiere’s former Heroes costar Jack Coleman raised a similar concern in his tribute after her death. Coleman, who played her onscreen father, recalled photographers following Panettiere when she was a teenager and characterized the attention she faced as predatory. Gilbert specifically referenced Coleman while arguing that the treatment of young women by photographers, media outlets and the public needs greater scrutiny.
Gilbert also called for accessible, free mental health support for child performers as they transition into young adulthood. Entertainment Weekly noted that she wants studios and networks involved in creating an industry-wide system rather than leaving care dependent solely on whether a performer qualifies for health insurance based on earnings.
Anna Paquin’s Post Gave Gilbert a Starting Point
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Gilbert was writing her essay as another former child performer, Anna Paquin, was publicly addressing the same subject. Paquin wrote on Instagram about the lack of protection experienced by some young performers and directly offered support to other former child actors who wanted to contact her.
Gilbert reposted Paquin’s message and said she saw the outreach as the beginning of a possible solution. She proposed that former child performers organize their own group, exchange ideas, help younger actors advocate for themselves and collectively approach studio and network executives about reducing exploitation.
She also suggested that former child stars could speak out collectively against invasive media coverage, lobby for stronger privacy rights and wear a simple “ENOUGH” ribbon on red carpets to call attention to the issue. Gilbert said such a group could eventually help change both industry practices and laws governing privacy and protections for young performers.