‘Brady Bunch’ Star Drops Bombshell About Tough Truth Behind The Scenes

Susan Olsen is getting candid about the downside of playing everyone's favorite pigtail-wearing cutie, Cindy Brady.

The "Brady Bunch" alum, now 63, opened up on "The Real Brady Bros" podcast this week, revealing she wasn’t always thrilled with being cast as the "dumb" character on the beloved ‘70s sitcom.

Cindy, played by Susan Olsen, is the youngest Brady child and the youngest daughter in the family. She is known for her blonde pigtails, sweet personality, and trademark lisp, which made her a standout character.

Cindy often found herself in adorable, and sometimes mischievous, situations, typically related to being the "baby" of the family.

Years later, Olsen is speaking candidly about her experiences playing Cindy, including the challenges of being typecast as the "cute, slightly naive" youngest sibling.

Chatting with her former TV brothers Barry Williams (Greg Brady) and Christopher Knight (Peter Brady), Olsen reflected on a memorable moment from the pilot episode that perfectly summed up Cindy’s not-so-bright persona.

In the scene, Cindy and her sisters, Marcia and Jan, chat with their mom, Carol, ahead of her wedding. When Carol says she feels butterflies, Cindy cluelessly asks, "Are you sleeping with your mouth open, mommy?"

"That's just how my career was and it was something I had to accept," Olsen shared on the podcast, admitting she was often typecast into playing the ditzy child.

Williams quickly jumped in to defend his former co-star, telling her, "Do you understand that you were the cutest person in the world? You’re just adorable."

Knight agreed, saying Olsen had a "doll face," but both admitted they always knew Susan was "smarter and edgier" than her onscreen character.

"You're so much smarter than the character and you're so much edgier than your character," Williams observed. "But here it is right there. You're saying the most idiotic thing imaginable."

Turns out Olsen’s son, Mike, noticed the same thing growing up.

Susan recalled a moment when he watched one of her old Disney movies where her character asked, "Why does he talk funny?" about a British man, and then cluelessly followed up with, "What's English?"

"My son said, 'So you always play the stupid child,'" Olsen shared. "And I said, 'Mike, you're right. I did.' And he goes, 'Wow. Do you think you had anything to do with that?' I'm like, 'Well, I hope not!'"

Still, Olsen said her mom always had a positive spin on it, calling her ditzy lines "cute," even if, as Susan joked, "She doesn't have a functioning brain, but she's cute."

But playing Cindy wasn’t all pigtails and punchlines. Olsen also revealed she suffered a serious injury while filming the "Brady Bunch" pilot at just seven years old.

During the podcast, she recalled how lighting equipment fell on her while she was getting her makeup done, just one day before filming the show’s first episode.

"My eyes were black. I mean, I had two black eyes. My nose was swollen. My face was swollen," she said, describing the painful accident.

Looking back with a bit of humor, Olsen added, "The saddest news is that we didn't sue Paramount, because I would have made more off of that than the show. But I came to work the next day. Florence [Henderson] was the first one to see me. She's like, 'You make sure everybody sees her.' And my mom was like, 'Oh, yes, I will.' Because everybody was trying to say, 'It didn't really hit her. She's fine.'"

To conceal her bruises during the pilot, "Brady Bunch" creator Sherwood Schwartz brought in makeup artist Hal King, who had previously worked with Lucille Ball.

"I looked like I was in a horror film," she added. "And then everybody knew, yes, I had gotten hurt, and I had gotten hurt very badly."

Despite the bumps, bruises, and typecasting, Susan Olsen remains a forever icon in TV history, even if little Cindy didn’t always know what "English" was.