EXCLUSIVE: Inside 'The Brady Bunch’ Curse Filled With Drugs, Body Issues and Nasty Feuds – Radar Lifts the Lid on Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of the Beloved '60s Sitcom
The so-called 'Brady Bunch' curse exposed dark behind-the-scenes secrets, including drugs, body struggles, and feuds.
Oct. 9 2025, Published 7:00 a.m. ET
RadarOnline.com exposes the so-called Brady Bunch curse, where the wholesome image of the '60s sitcom hid dark realities.
Behind the scenes, the cast wrestled with drugs, body image struggles and bitter feuds.
Maureen McCormick admitted she traded sex for drugs during her battle with cocaine addiction.
Maureen McCormick (Marcia Brady)
Battling body issues in her teenage years, Maureen McCormick went from playing Miss Perfect Marcia to an off-screen life of seedy sex and drug addiction after the show went off the air in 1974.
"I sought refuge in seemingly glamorous cocaine dens about Hollywood," McCormick, 69, revealed in her 2008 memoir, Here's the Story.
"I slipped into a world of crazy parties and sex and a path of self-destruction that nearly ruined me."
Maureen, who also suffered from bulimia and was admitted to a psych ward, confesses to trading sex for drugs – even allowing herself to be videotaped doing a sexual act in exchange for drugs, which never surfaced.
"If there was coke, I had to stay up and do every last flake even if it meant going without food for days," she recalled. "Nothing else mattered."
Eventually, Maureen entered rehab and has been clean and sober for over 40 years.
She was just coming out of her addiction when she met her husband, Michael Cummings: "He really, really saved me from rock bottom."
Eve Plumb accused McCormick of fabricating a kiss story to promote her memoir.
Eve Plumb (Jan Brady)
After the beloved show ended, Eve Plumb and McCormick took sibling rivalry to a new level.
Instead of "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," it became "Maureen, Maureen, Maureen" as McCormick penned her memoir and, while promoting it, claimed the TV sisters had once locked lips. "Oh yeah, we kissed," she said, to be exact.
That started whispers of a "lesbian affair," and a fuming Plumb, 67, accused McCormick of making up the story to sell books.
Their bad blood boiled so hot that, reportedly, it torpedoed a planned 2010 talk show reunion, because they didn't even want to be in the same room together.
They were able to patch things up for the 2019 HGTV reality show A Very Brady Renovation, in which Susan Olsen (Cindy) laughed off the notion that she had to repair her on-screen sisters' relationship.
"There was no remedy needed," Olsen assured.
For her part, Plumb said she dodged a sad child star upbringing. And she avoided being typecast as a goody-goody with her gritty TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, which she said "was the giant leap that sent me from being Jan Brady to being an adult actress."
Susan Olsen said she once hated being part of such a wholesome show with American values.
Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady)
It wasn't easy playing "the youngest one in curls."
Susan couldn't escape being stereotyped as a pigtailed cutie-pie and ended up quitting Hollywood.
"When I was younger … I really hated the fact that I was in such a wholesome show with American values and morals," she once admitted.
"I think people generally are happily surprised when they find out that my tastes are not quite so wholesome."
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Plumb called her role in 'Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway' a leap into adult acting.
Olsen, now 64, was at an awkward age when The Brady Bunch ended.
"We had all grown to the point where we weren't cute anymore," she recalled. "They didn't know what to do with me. I was starting to pray for the show to be canceled, because I didn't want a very special episode of Cindy getting her period, or her first bra, or, God forbid, her first kiss. It's like, 'No, no, let me go through my awkward years alone without being on national TV.'"
Olsen – now a graphic artist and an acting teacher at Vibe Performing Arts in Santa Clarita, California – also struggled with body-image issues at that young age.
"My nose was taking over my face by the time I was 12, and I had to wait until I was 16 to get a nose job. So I was extremely self-conscious about how ugly I was getting. And I had the braces, and, you know, just when you're 12, you're so awkward," she said.
