Susan Olsen Says She ‘Almost Died’ Filming ‘The Brady Bunch’ Wedding Episode: ‘I Wanted to Sob, It Hurt So Bad’
Susan Olsen is opening up about a near-tragic moment on the set of The Brady Bunch that almost cost her everything — and no one seemed to care except Florence Henderson.
Olsen, now 63, recalled the terrifying day while appearing on a podcast with former castmates Barry Williams and Christopher Knight. She revealed that during filming for the iconic wedding scene between Carol (Florence Henderson) and Mike (Robert Reed), she was seriously injured — and her swollen face is actually visible if you zoom into the footage.
“You can tell at the wedding scene,” Olsen said. “If you look really close, my face is swollen. I look different. You can even see it in the early publicity photos.”
Olsen, who played the adorable Cindy Brady, said she was brushed off by the crew after the injury. “In fact, I didn’t just want to cry — I wanted to sob. I just wanted to forget my pride and sob because it hurt so bad,” she recalled.
Only Florence Henderson noticed how serious the situation was, Olsen said, and insisted that everyone acknowledge her injuries. Olsen’s mother backed her up, but the studio pressured them to play it down. Instead of getting real medical treatment, Susan returned to work the next day — bruised, battered, and stitched up with makeup.
“I had two black eyes. My nose was swollen. My face was swollen,” Olsen described. “But part of me loved it. I thought it made me look like I was in a horror movie.”
Despite the severity of her injury, Olsen said they never sued Paramount, joking, “I would have made more off a lawsuit than I made on the show.”
Legendary makeup artist Hal King, known for his work with Lucille Ball, was brought in to camouflage the bruises each day. “Every day I’d say, ‘My bruises are purple today, Hal!’” Olsen remembered, with a mixture of fondness and sadness.
The Brady Bunch aired from 1969 to 1974 and became one of the most iconic family sitcoms in American history. The show’s magic, however, hid a lot of behind-the-scenes chaos — much of which Susan Olsen only now feels ready to talk about.
Years later, Olsen was set to star in a Brady Bunch reboot, but says it fell apart when CBS allegedly “canceled” her over her outspoken conservative views, including her support for Donald Trump and skepticism toward COVID-19 vaccines and LGBTQ+ causes.
“I was basically told I was too dangerous to play a character I had played for fifty years,” Olsen said. “I even offered to take a political correctness class. But they didn’t want me.”
She had big plans for Cindy Brady’s adult life — envisioning her as a libertarian podcaster, mirroring Olsen’s real-life persona — but the network wouldn’t allow it.
“They just would not budge,” she said. “I got canceled from my own role. I just thought, wow, good luck guys. Hope you can sell it without me.”
Olsen still holds love for her Brady family, but her real story — full of injuries, politics, and unspoken battles — is finally coming out from behind that perfect TV smile.