'The Brady Bunch' Actress Eve Plumb Opens Up About Why Her New Memoir Skips the Drama: 'I Didn't Want to Throw Anybody Under the Bus'

Mar 31, 2026 by apost team

For millions of television viewers, Eve Plumb will always be Jan Brady — the perpetually overlooked middle daughter of the blended Brady family on the classic ABC sitcom "The Brady Bunch."

The show ran from 1969 to 1974, and decades later, its hold on popular culture hasn't loosened one bit, keeping its cast forever tied to the roles that made them household names.

Plumb was just 11 years old when she was cast in the show. Now 67, she's preparing to release her memoir, "Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond," on April 28, 2026 — and from the sound of it, readers hoping for juicy behind-the-scenes revelations may need to adjust their expectations.

"I wish more stuff had come up. I thought (writing the memoir) might bring some things back that I'd forgotten, but not a bit of it," she told Woman's World in an interview. "But the process itself was really wonderful. It was very gentle."

That gentleness was very much intentional. Plumb has always been a private person, even at the height of the show's fame. "As a public person, I've always wanted to keep certain things private," she said. "I didn't even want to tell people the name of my dog for a long time. You share so much of your life already."

That instinct to protect her inner world didn't just shape how she lived — it shaped how she wrote. Rather than using the memoir as an opportunity to air grievances or settle old scores, Plumb chose a quieter, more reflective path. And her reason for doing so says a lot about the kind of person she is.

For Plumb, writing the memoir with collaborator Marcia Wilke turned out to be less like excavation and more like a gentle conversation with herself. She admitted to Women’s World: 

"The process of writing the book offered something closer to reflection than revelation, like a therapy session where she didn't have to challenge me at all. I just got to talk about myself and the things that I remembered."

That tone carries through to how she chose to handle her memories of the "The Brady Bunch" cast. Despite decades of public curiosity about what really happened behind the scenes of one of television's most beloved shows, Plumb deliberately chose to keep things kind. She said:

"Part of this book was that I really didn't want to throw anybody under the bus — not my castmates, not anyone. I had to tell the truth about a few things, but I was cloaking it, for their sake and for mine."

It's a refreshingly mature stance — one that stands in sharp contrast to the tell-all memoir culture that has become increasingly common in Hollywood. And Plumb believes her fellow castmates feel much the same way. The "Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond" author made it clear that the Brady Bunch family, even all these years later, operates with a kind of unspoken mutual respect that most casts could only dream of. "I think most of us realize there's no need," Plumb said of any impulse to speak badly of one another. "It doesn't look good on me to trash them in public, does it?"

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Are you a fan of Eve Plumb and The Brady Bunch? Do you think more celebrities should take this approach when writing about their co-stars? Let us know in the comments and pass this on to your family, friends, and other Brady Bunch fans out there!