Melissa Gilbert, star of Little House on the Prairie, has published an essay urging Hollywood to better protect child actors following the death of Hayden Panettiere, who was found unresponsive at a South Carolina apartment on 16 August and died aged 36, reportedly from a suspected overdose. The essay, published on Saturday and titled "Enough Is Enough," is notable partly because Gilbert's own husband, actor Timothy Busfield, is currently facing charges of criminal sexual contact with a child under 13 on set, allegations he denies.

In the piece, Gilbert, 62, linked Panettiere's death to those of fellow former child stars Michelle Trachtenberg and Daveigh Chase within the same year, describing a sense of shared trauma among "Female Former Child Performers." She recounted being made to keep working shortly after her father's death aged 11 and after an emergency appendectomy that nearly led to sepsis, arguing that mobile phones have intensified the exploitation of young performers and calling for industry-wide change to let child actors "be children."