McCormick: 'Brady lesbian rumours a joke'

Maureen McCormick has admitted that a lesbian rumour she started about herself and a Brady Bunch co-star was a "joke".

The actress, who played eldest daughter Marcia Brady on the ’70s US TV sitcom, said that her words about an alleged gay affair between she and Eve Plumb (Jan Brady) have caused a rift between the pair, the New York Post reports.

"[Plumb] now apparently wants to distance herself from the show and, most troubling, from me," McCormick wrote on Fancast.com. "I have no idea why, unless she's mad at the joke I made a few years ago that we'd had a lesbian love affair.

"I made the crack to be funny - and for shock value. I'm sorry if she took offence."

McCormick published the tell-all book Here's The Story last year and made the comments prior to its release. She claimed that all six original Brady kids were asked to reunite on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the autumn, but Plumb refused to accept.

She added: "All of us said yes except for one person, Eve Plumb."

However, Plumb's agent Mark Measures denied that his client was ever approached about appearing on the popular chatshow, saying: "No-one from Oprah called. We haven't turned down anything. There is no feud."

The Brady Bunch originally ran on ABC from 1969 to 1974.