'Brady Bunch' alum Susan Olsen busts rumors about cast affair, calls out her death hoax
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Susan Olsen has addressed rumors of an alleged hookup between cast members of iconic family TV show 'The Brady Bunch'.
The former child actress, who notably played Cindy Brady in 'The Brady Bunch,' is tired of a slew of outlandish rumors surrounding the hit 1970s sitcom. One particular rumor -- involving her TV mom Carol Brady (played by Florence Henderson) and on-screen sibling Greg Brady (played by Barry Williams), rubbed Olsen the wrong way and she is finally addressing it after years of silence.
READ MORE
"I disliked the rumors that Florence Henderson and Barry Williams had an affair," Olsen, now 61, told Fox News. "Barry had a crush on her," she explained. "She was very kind to him. She let him take her out for her birthday. So I don’t like the implication that’s been out there, that something was going on with them. There wasn’t anything going on with them except for mutual respect and love."
Henderson, who died at age 82 in 2016, previously touched on the date. "He had a crush on me, and he asked me out for a date, which I’ll never forget," the beloved matriarch told People in 1991, as quoted by Fox News. "He was too young to drive, so his older brother brought him to my hotel, and then I drove us to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where we saw a singer. It was so sweet because Barry made sure we had a good table." She recalled, "After the show, his brother picked him up and took him home. The crush was a very serious thing for him, so I was never condescending. I certainly liked him too, but I wasn’t exactly the Cher of the TV mom set."
Williams also opened up about the outing in his book 'Growing Up Brady,' insisting that the date was nothing more than a memorable dinner. "When those little things called hormones start kicking in, you get excited by even inanimate objects," he wrote, as quoted by the outlet. "It wasn’t that I sought to bed her. I just wanted to spend time with her. It was flattering that she gave me any attention at all."
Olsen also wanted to set the record straight about another bizarre rumor about her death. "That’s pretty much a fabrication," she said. "There actually was a young girl named Susan Olsen who got her coat stuck in the door of a bus and was dragged several blocks and died. And some news source on the East Coast reported that it was me. And there were always rumors that I was dead… It made me feel like Paul McCartney because it was at the same time that there were rumors that Paul McCartney was dead."
"Rumors of my death are gross exaggerations," Olsen added.