The Tragic Real-Life Stories Of These Brady Bunch Stars

May 2024 · 1 minute read

Marcia was always positioned as the prettier, more popular sister — at least in Jan's opinion. In truth, Maureen McCormick struggled with her character's image. But the TV star's deep-seated issues didn't begin and end with cocaine use; she also battled bulimia for a decade.

In a 2007 interview with People, McCormick admitted that pressure from the show wasn't what actually gave her an eating disorder. Instead, it was her experience as a teenager. She first developed disordered eating habits at age 17 when she enrolled in public high school. "I was with some girls, we had a gallon of ice cream, and someone mentioned how we could eat it all and not gain weight," she said. "It seemed ideal. Once I started [purging], it was hard to stop."

Being forced to don a bathing suit for the camera in her on-screen work following The Brady Bunch only bolstered her disorder. "That made me so self-conscious," McCormick told People, explaining that every time she gained weight, she'd go right back to purging, even if she thought she had kicked the habit. Thankfully, the actress ended up recovering from bulimia: "Being able to quit drugs and finding belief in a higher power gave me the tools to end the bulimia." 

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