Elisabeth McGowan
Share his truth. boy meets the world alum William Daniels‘ wife, Bonnie Bartlettdefended their mutual infidelity after revealing the two had an affair during the first decade of their marriage.
“You have to realize that we still live in a very puritanical nation,” the former little house on the prairie star, 93, said People Tuesday, January 24.[When we got married], people were just loose on things. The only thing is that it harms you, damages your self-esteem. It hurts. … You have to have lived through that time as an adult to see what it was like.
The couple married in 1951. They share adopted sons, Robert and Michael Danielsin addition to a son who died just 24 hours after Bonnie gave birth in 1961.
In her interview, Bonnie described the 1950s as a “culture” that was “simply different”. However, she still admitted that she and William, 95, might have fallen out had they not moved to Los Angeles.
“Hollywood was really the saving grace for our marriage because once we got to Hollywood, and we were here and lived like a normal family and had weekends at home with our kids and did things, c ‘was [a] totally different story,” she explained. “Nobody wanted anything more than that.”
The Love of my life alum went on to reveal that their marriage “could have broken up at any time [in] these first 10 years if one of the [them] was, say, fell in love with someone, but [they] never done.”
“We both really wanted to be together,” Bonnie concluded. “Love never stopped.”
The Emmy winner’s comments came on the day of her new memoir, middle of the rainbow, has been freed. In it, Bonnie revealed that she and her husband – who is famous for playing the devoted teacher, Mr. Feeny, on the Disney sitcom – had had an extramarital affair.
“I never felt tied to fidelity, and neither did Bill,” Bonnie writes in the book, adding that she had “an affair that lasted a few months” in 1959 with an actor. However, William’s 1970s relationship with a New York producer left Bonnie “devastated”, which she confessed caused her to rethink “any kind of open marriage”.
Despite their struggles, the couple stayed together and have been married for 72 years.
“Life is about solving problems,” Bonnie told Fox News on Jan. 17, referring to how she and William “had to grow together” to overcome difficulties in their marriage. “Bill and I moved on day by day, and eventually, the days piled up. We were happy together and sad together, and somehow stayed together for seven decades.