Melissa Gilbert, former "Little House on the Prairie" star, allowed doctors to remove her breast implants this week, explaining in an earlier blog post that she is happy with life now and no long obsessed with her looks.
Gilbert, 50, wrote in detail about her decision to get her breast implants
removed on her "Melissa's Mid-Life Musings" blog on Dec. 31. On Tuesday, she announced on Twitter that doctors had performed the surgery.
Gilbert was a child star who appeared in "Little House on the Prairie,"
which aired from 1974 to 1983, according to E! News. She explained in her blog that she began having mixed feelings about her breasts back then when show handlers would make her wear a padded bra.
"I was a proud, card-carrying member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee," Gilbert wrote on her blog about her time growing up in Hollywood. "I had no desire to have a Jessica Rabbit-esque figure. Not that there's anything wrong with a Jessica Rabbit-esque figure. In fact that image was pounded into my head repeatedly. I found that very confusing."
Gilbert said she initially got breast implants after her first divorce, which boosted her self-esteem. She then had replacement implants put in in 2004.
"So I made the decision to replace the implants and do a breast lift," she wrote. "But, something was nagging at me. I couldn't shake the idea that my implants had a shelf life. They would have to have them replaced every 10-15 years for the rest of my life. It was possible that at 80 years old I might have to get new implants!"
It wasn't until after her appearance on "Dancing With the Stars" in 2012 and an accident at home where a patio cover collapsed over her head that she decided to get rid of the implants all together.
"It was like a light switch going on," she wrote. "The shallowness of my existence at that point brought me to my knees. I had to change. I had to look inward and address my issues . . . It was time for me to change. I had to focus on what was real and true. I'd lost myself somehow."