Melissa Gilbert is best known for playing sweet, spirited Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie, but her dating history in the 1980s included a very unexpected rock star.
Long before social media made celebrity relationships easy to track, Gilbert found herself romantically linked to Billy Idol. The unlikely pairing may have surprised fans then, and it still catches people off guard today.
Gilbert was in her early 20s when she met the English rocker at a Los Angeles nightclub. She later opened up about their brief romance in her 2009 autobiography, Prairie Tale: A Memoir.
The actress remembered Idol as a “sweet, gentle, and soft-spoken charmer” when they first met. She also recalled that the singer was curious about her childhood in Hollywood and wanted to hear about her Little House on the Prairie costar Michael Landon.
“He wanted to know all about Michael Landon,” she wrote, adding that he asked what it was like to grow up on television. Their relationship eventually fizzled, with Idol’s heavy partying reportedly contributing to the split.
Gilbert recently brought the relationship back up when she shared a montage of 1980s music clips on Instagram. “So, so good! I may even have dated one of these artists…can you guess who?” she captioned the post.
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For some followers, the answer wasn’t difficult to figure out.
“Billy Idol. I remember pasting pictures of you and him in my scrapbook,” one person commented.
Another recalled seeing photos of the pair together in a teen magazine, while someone else joked that Idol’s famous lips may have helped win Gilbert over.
“My guess is Billy Idol! It was the lip, that lip drew you in!” one user quipped.
Idol wasn’t the only recognizable name connected to Gilbert’s dating life during the decade. The actress also dated several other well-known stars, including Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Scott Baio and John Cusack.
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