‘Little House on the Prairie’ Star Melissa Gilbert Shares Shocking Story About Finding Her Birth Father

Melissa Gilbert is telling her truth, no matter how raw it is. The Little House on the Prairie staple is getting real about her family life.

She recently spoke about her journey of finding her birth parents in an episode of Patrick Labyorteaux’s podcast, The Patrick LabyorScheaux, PEOPLE reports. They bonded over their similar experiences, their roles on the series and finding their familial connections. 

“When I saw [son Dakota] for the first time, I went, ‘Oh my god,’” she said about having her first child, born in 1989. “He had my eyebrows and he had my lips, and I’d never seen anyone that looked like me. And then I realized there’s got to be more.”

It set her on an identity crisis of sorts, fueling the need for her long lost family. “They were each married to other people and had three children each and ran off together and conceived me on a motorcycle trip in the desert,” she revealed of her biological parents. “Explains a lot. And then they left their spouses for each other and got married after [getting] pregnant with me and moved all the kids in, so I was number seven. So the decision was made to put me up for adoption.”

Of her adoptive parents Barbara Cowan (née Crane) and Paul Gilbert, who were actors, the actress explained that her biological parents had entertainment roots of sorts with her birth mother working as an exotic dancer and her birth father was a stock car racer and musician. “So it was pretty clear that it was in me,” she noted.

Her birth mother died before she ever got a chance to meet her. However, she did meet her biological father. “I didn’t tell him who I was, and then he asked me, ‘Well, who are you? What do you do?’” she shared. “And I said, ‘Well, here’s the thing.’ And I said, ‘Did you ever watch Little House on the Prairie?’ And he said, ‘You’re Laura, aren’t you? I knew it.’ He knew it.”

“He could see,” she added of her character on the show. And when I met my half-siblings, we all look alike. So, you could definitely see it. So, it’s pretty clear.”