EXCLUSIVE: 'Brady Bunch' Betrayal! How Child Star Susan Olsen Prayed for Smash Show to End After 'Feeling Ugly' on Screen
'Brady Bunch' child star Susan Olsen prayed for the show to finish.
June 16 2025, Published 6:00 a.m. ET
Former child actress Susan Olsen – who played pigtailed cutie Cindy on The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974 – has admitted she "felt guilt" when the series ended after five seasons "because I'd been praying for the show to be canceled," RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Olsen, 63, who portrayed the youngest of the six siblings in the combined Brady clan, confided she was somewhat relieved when the waning sitcom fizzled out just before she entered her teens – because "it's bad enough to go through your awkward stage and to feel really ugly, but doing it on national TV is not something I wanted to do."
Olsen also shared she was frustrated over her clueless character being continually required to deliver dumb lines.
Behind-Scenes Drama
Maureen McCormick, left, and Susan Olsen became icons long before Olsen.
She recalled: "My mother always said, it's cute," – but also jokingly remarked: "She doesn't have a functioning brain, but she's cute."
Olsen added as time passed, she grew to appreciate the family-friendly series, which also featured fellow kids Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, and Mike Lookinland, in addition to Robert Reed and Florence Henderson as their parents.
"We didn't really know that we were that popular until we went out on the road. And I never had a sense of it being cool until years later," Olsen said.
Child psychiatrists used 'Brady Bunch' episodes to give abused kids hope.
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She added: "I first became really proud of the show when I found out that child psychiatrists were using it. They were using episodes for kids that were coming from horrible abuse.
"And I would've thought, well, why would they want to see this perfectly good family? They do. They want to see somebody being happy. They want to see that there's hope."
