Susan Olsen ‘Almost Died’ While Filming ‘The Brady Bunch’: Child Star Opens Up About On Set Injury

The Brady Bunch was always full of family fun on screen, but star Susan Olsen, who played Cindy Brady on the sitcom, revealed a scary incident from the show’s set that she claims almost killed her.

Susan Olsen Opens Up About Injury From ‘The Brady Bunch’ Set

In April 2025, Susan appeared on “The Real Brady Bros” podcast where she opened up about an injury she sustained on set while filming the show’s first episode titled “The Honeymoon.” She was joined by costars Barry Williams, Christopher Knight and Mike Lookinland during the podcast.

The costars began speaking about the filming of Florence Henderson’s Carol Brady and Robert Reed’s Mike Brady’s wedding and honeymoon. Barry mentioned that the episode featured “the biggest close-up I have ever seen to this day” and that it showed the “adorable face of Cindy Brady.”

Susan explained the reasoning behind that major close-up, sharing that she suffered an injury on the Culver lot, leading to a bruised face while working on set of the girls’ bedroom. “I almost died,” the California native said. Her costars had no idea that was the case.

“I was getting body makeup on my legs,” Susan said. “I was standing on a makeup chair and something from the catwalk, where they keep all the lights and everything, fell. It hit the makeup man first, [bounced] off the body makeup woman, and hit me in the face.”

“If you look at the [wedding] ceremony, and you see the three girls on one side, if you were to zoom in really tight, you can see my face is quite swollen,” she said. “I look different. You can even see it in some of the early publicity shots.”

Susan Olsen Says Florence Henderson Comforted Her After the Injury

Susan said that her mother was on set and she went and sat with her after the incident happened. She also recalled Florence also coming over to her and offering her support. Florence was particularly upset that the incident even happened in the first place and that crew members were rather nonchalant about it.

“Florence is going, ‘That hit that little girl really hard.’ And everybody’s going, ‘No. She’s fine,’” Susan revealed.

“I swear I thought, ‘I don’t wanna be brave, and I want to cry. In fact, I don’t just want to cry. I want to sob. I’m just gonna let go and forget all my pride and just sob because this hurts,’” she reflected.

Susan said director John Rich came up to her and told her that she was a “brave little girl.”

“And I was like, yeah, OK, I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry. I’m going to be a brave girl,” she remembered.

“The saddest news is that we didn’t sue Paramount, because I would have made more off of that than the show,” she said.

The Blending Christmas actress said that the mishap left her with “two black eyes” and a “swollen” face and nose. She made it a point to show off her injuries on set because “everybody was trying to say, ‘It didn’t really hit her. She’s fine.’”

However, she also remembered that as a little kid, she didn’t mind the rough look.

“I remember loving it because I looked like I was in a horror film,” Susan shared. “And then everybody knew, yes, I had gotten hurt, and I had gotten hurt very badly.”

To cover up the bruises on her face, makeup artist Hal King, who did makeup for Lucille Ball, was called to the set. Susan was a big fan of Lucille, so she was delighted by the experience.

“I loved Lucy. She was my idol. And I was so thrilled to have him. And every day, my bruises would be a different color, and I’d say, ‘My bruises are purple today, Hal,’” she said.