Susan Olsen: ‘Brady Bunch’ Secrets Protected ‘Brady Bunch’ Gay Dad Robert Reed, Who Was HIV Positive [Video]

Susan Olsen is dishing Brady Bunch secrets. The actress who played cute little Cindy Brady mostly focused on the lighter side of the TV family’s life, she also revealed the way in which the cast helped Robert Reed, who played the Brady Bunch father, to protect the fact that he was gay.

In addition, when it comes to Brady Bunch FAQs, Olsen also says that the boys and girls who played the Brady Bunch brothers and sisters enjoyed friendships as well as hook-ups. And Olsen enjoyed some more-than-friendly moments herself, reported Wonderwall.

Brady Bunch co-star Mike Lookinland, who played Bobby Brady, was Susan’s own personal flame, admitted Olsen.

“We used to make out in the doghouse when we were nine,” she recalled happily.

As for rumors that Susan became a drug dealer when the show ended its run after its success from 1969-1974? Olsen hedges on whether that qualifies among her serious Brady Bunch secrets.

“I guess technically, but I was really a (marijuana) grower, my husband at the time and I grew it hydroponically. I have never really enjoyed smoking it, it makes me very paranoid. But it was my husband’s idea,” clarified Susan.

Olsen noted that she considers growing marijuana more like gardening than drug dealing.

“It was really fascinating and I’ve always been into ‘gardening’ and it’s such a complicated, wonderfully fascinating plant. But that was one of the reasons why I did leave my husband, because it just bothered me too much that we were doing something so illegal.”

In addition, Susan talked about the Brady Bunch dad Robert Reed, reported News Limited.

Olsen says that the children knew that Robert was gay, but that it was one of the Brady Bunch secrets because he wanted it hidden.

“He never meant for us to know. He never ever had any intentions of coming out of the closet and I think he might have been mortified to know that we knew,” said Susan.

But out of all the Brady Bunch cast, Olsen says that she liked Barry Williams the least.

“He was kind of macho about it. While he was extremely sweet to me, there was still a little edge to him. I was a wisecracking seven-year-old and I’d always say to him, ‘Oh come, you’re not really a grown up. Get over it.'”

However, Williams subsequently was disliked by more than Cindy Brady. As the Inquistr reported, Barry was accused of abandoning his girlfriend and their 3-year-old daughter. Williams denied the claims, contending that she got pregnant deliberately.

But of all the Brady Bunch secrets, Susan Olsen feels that the man who played her father on the show suffered the most.

Robert Reed died at 59, and not until after his passing did the world discover that he was gay, reported the Daily Mail.

His health problems included being HIV positive.

Susan praised her Brady Bunch father.

“As a child, I was BLESSED to have another father figure in my life,” she wrote on social media. “Because it was so taboo, he could never make peace with himself. He never allowed himself to have a genuine love. He was forever taunted by his own disdain for the natural inclinations that he was BORN WITH.”

And Olsen also revealed that she feels Reed could have had a joyous life.

“Bob was a family man. Had he been allowed to form a relationship with another man, he would have been the best husband ever and might still be alive. The people surrounding [him] shoved their own judgment down his throat and, sadly, he bought into it. He thought he was wrong.”

[Photo by ABC]