Melissa Gilbert's Heartfelt Plea After Tragic Loss of Young Stars

Melissa Gilbert can’t help but take the recent deaths of former child stars Hayden Panettiere, Michelle Trachtenberg and Daveigh Chase personally.

“They are gone and the question I have been turning over and over in my head is, ‘WHY?’. Why are these three, sweet, wildly talented, vibrant, vital young women gone?” Gilbert, 62, wrote in an essay shared via her Substack on Saturday, August 22. “And why does this all feel so personal to me? I did not know Hayden personally and only worked briefly with Mishy and Daveigh. It feels personal because I was them.”

She continued, “We are all members of the same tribe; Female Former Child Performers, and when one of us dies, it runs through all of us like an electrical current. When three of us die so close together, something is very, very wrong.”