‘Little House on the Prairie’ star slams Megyn Kelly for rant about show’s ‘woke’ reboot

During one of Megyn Kelly’s regular culture war rants Wednesday, the conservative pundit threatened to make it her “mission” to destroy an announced Netflix reboot of the long-running TV family drama, “Little House on the Prairie,” if the producers “wokeify” it.

Kelly’s rant on X prompted a rather bemused response from the original show’s star, Melissa Gilbert, who played a young version of author Laura Ingalls Wilder on the show, which ran on NBC from 1974 to 1983. Wilder’s beloved children’s books formed the basis for the show, which depicted her family’s life on the American frontier, starting in the 1870s.

As the Daily Beast reported, Gilbert wrote on Threads: “Apparently Megyn tweeted (I’m not on that platform) asking that Netflix not ‘woke-ify’ their Little House remake,” according to the Daily Beast. Gilbert then suggested that Kelley “Ummm…watch the original again. TV doesn’t get much more ‘woke’ than we did.”

Gilbert continued by saying that the original show “tackled racism, addiction, nativism, antisemitism, misogyny, rape, spousal abuse and every other ‘woke’ topic you can think of,” the Daily Beast reported. Gilbert also is familiar with fresh takes on the Prairie stories, given that she starred in a musical theater adaptation of Wilder’s books, which premiered at Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theatre in 2008 and toured nationally.

Gilbert finished off her message to Kelly with a curt: “Thank you very much.” Gilbert likely gained some valuable experience dealing with politically agitated people by once serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild and by briefly running for Congress in 2015. Without invoking Donald Trump’s name, Gilbert also made it clear in October that she didn’t support his return to the White House or his politics by posting on Instagram her support “to protect reproductive rights.”

Kelly’s rant was prompted by an X post from the Hollywood Reporter, reporting on the “Little House on the Prairie” reboot. Kelly possibly took issue with Jinny Howe, Netflix’s vice president for drama series, vowing that it would provide “a fresh take on this iconic story.”

Netflix also said that the new take on “Little House on the Prairie” will be “part hopeful family drama, part epic survival tale and part origin story of the American West” that will serve up a “kaleidoscopic view of the struggles and triumphs of those who shaped the frontier.” From that description, it sounds like Kelly might take issue with a TV series that will possibly show that Native Americans and others, not just White European immigrants, had a role in shaping the culture, politics and history of the American West.