Melissa Gilbert swapped her life in Los Angeles for a quiet country retreat because she worried the city was "not safe place to age"

Melissa told New York Post column PageSix: "I just didn't feel like that [Los Angeles] was a safe place for me to age. It's so anti-aging, which is one of my least favorite expressions in the world. Anti-aging means dead ...

[There's pressure to] not get any older and stay a size 2 or 4 or whatever [I] was at that time. [After the move] I went from, 'Oh God, I better not get older!' to 'Oh God, I'm so glad I'm older!''. I love the age I am right now."

However, Melissa still has a lot of affection for Los Angeles and was devastated to see the city burning in the recent wildfires.

She added: "I did not realize the depth of love that I have for my hometown until the wildfires. The amount of people I know who have lost everything, and not movie stars and television stars.

"It's devastating and I do love so much about Los Angeles. It just wasn't the right place for me to live in any longer but it will always be my hometown."

Melissa previously admitted she stopped colouring her hair and had her breast implants removed after leaving LA.

She told FoxNews Digital: "I looked at myself in the mirror several years back. I was living in Los Angeles, and I did not recognize who I was. I had overfilled my face and my lips. My forehead didn't move.

"I was still dyeing my hair red. I was driving a Mustang convertible. I was a size two in an unhealthy way. I looked like a frozen version of my younger self, and that's not who I was .

"I was stuck. could feel myself fighting it. And I said to myself, 'It's time to age.' I had to leave Los Angeles to do that - not Hollywood - Los Angeles specifically.

"I stop colouring my hair. I had [my] breast implants removed. I decided to just be the best, healthiest version of myself without this pressure to look a certain way, and it paid off in a huge way.

"I finally found my feet as a woman, fully, 100 percent strong in my own knowledge, in my own accomplishments. Everything got easier. And a bonus? I have a lot more free time not staring in a mirror, sitting in a dermatologist's chair, or sitting in a hair chair."