John M. Heller/Getty ImagesMelissa Gilbert recently had a LOT to get off her chest.
The 50-year-old actress and former child star, best known for playing Laura "Half Pint" Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, this week underwent surgery to have her breast implants removed. She explained why, in a 2,258-word, humorous, expletive-filled and candid blog post titled "A Tale of Two T-tties" that was published on New Year's Eve and signed "T-ts McGee."
"In recovery," she tweeted on Tuesday. "Surgery went great. [Now] the recovery begins. #boobies!"
In her post, Gilbert wrote about her plastic surgery history and her struggles with body image, in which she cited Dancing With the Stars, the ABC reality show she completed on in 2012, and The Hills alum Heidi Montag.
"This post is all about breasts...or [mammary] glands...or whatever you call them...T-ts, Tatas, Boobs, Bazongas, Gazongas, Ninnies, Fried Eggs, Bazockies, Hooters, Fun Bags, Muffins, Globes, Bosom, Cha-Chas, Chesticles, etc.," she wrote.
"Specifically, this is all about mine because next week I'm having surgery to remove my implants permanently," she said. "The bottom line...or top line.. is that; A. I am concerned for my health and 2. I don't like the way they look or feel. Frankly, I'd like to be able to take a Zumba class without the fear that I'll end up with two black eyes."
Gilbert said she was "almost completely flat chested" for most of her life and that during the last few seasons of Little House on the Prairie, which aired between 1974 and 1983, she was made to wear a padded bra. She talked about how tabloids report about celebrities' weight changes.
"Then there's this sh-t! Oh! My! God! What are we telling young women and girls? UGH!" she said, above scanned pics of a 2010 magazine story showing "before" and "after" images of Montag, who had famously undergone 10 cosmetic procedures, including a breast augmentation to become a DDD cup size. She has since replaced the implants with smaller ones.
"This is our culture," Gilbert wrote. "It has been for a long, long time and I fell right into it. I believed that, not only would I work more, but people would love me more if I looked a certain way. Sad but true. My self-image was in the proverbial toilet."
"I had spent most of my life pressured to look a certain way and I believed the hype," she later added. "The height of this obsession with my outward appearance culminated with my appearance on the dancing show. It was all about spray tan and glitter and glamor and what other people think and being skinny, way too skinny!! Yuck!!"
The actress and mother of two discussed how after she stopped breast-feeding her first son, her chest looked different than before her pregnancy. According to Gilbert, his dad and her then-husband told her at the time that her breasts looked like "socks full of marbles with knots at the top." He has not commented about her post.
She said she took those words to heart and started wearing heavily padded bras. The two divorced in 1992.
"And there I was, single and feeling enormously insecure about my breasts," Gilbert wrote. "Dating posed the terrifying prospect of the guy I chose to make love with next, undoing my bra and running away in abject terror. Then and there, without doing any research, I made the decision, to get my breasts augmented. Not too big, just enough to fill up the 'socks.'"
Her first breast augmentation involved saline-filled implants. At the time, surgical placement of silicone gel implants, touted as more natural-looking and feeling and used widely abroad, was banned in the United States by the FDA, which called for long-term research regarding their safety. Breast augmentation surgeries involving such implants in the country were, however, sometimes permitted on condition of participating in a clinical trial.
"The surgery went perfectly," Gilbert wrote. "I was sore for a while after but nothing too awful and my boobs looked really natural. Most importantly...and most pathetically really...my self-esteem went back up."
In 2006, after several studies and product improvements, the FDA lifted its ban on silicone gel-filled breast implants. Regardless, all types of implants carry the risk of rupturing and need to be replaced periodically throughout a person's life.
Gilbert had another breast augmentation, this time with silicone implants, but ultimately "couldn't shake the idea that my implants had a shelf life" and was also fearful about having silicone in her body.
She also said she had a "rude awakening" when a 300-pound patio cover collapsed on her head. She decided to get her implants removed forever.
"Three years later, here I am...still changing....still growing. I am in a place where I am truly happy with myself. Sometimes I feel bad about my falling face and disappearing neck and I think I look like this," she wrote, above a photo of the Crypt Keeper from the '80s and '90s series Tales From the Crypt. "But most of the time, I'm really happy with the way I look. I'm enjoying aging."
"Aging is a gift not a curse," she added. "Love yourself. You are perfectly beautiful. You are enough."