Brady Bunch Stars Shocking Dark Secret Revealed!

She was the quintessential middle child in America's favorite blended family.

The undisputed drama queen of 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch, Jan Brady remains so iconic that recently , suggesting he was lying about his reason for bombing .

Though the series ended in 1974, its popularity refuses to fade, with cast members even appearing on a special episode of 's Drag Race in 2021.

And earlier this year, Barry Williams – who played elder brother Greg and was starring in the reality show : Get Me Out of Here! – revealed all during filming.

But , who played Jan Brady over its five seasons, managed to keep her biggest real-life drama a secret for more than a decade – with a little help from her on-screen family.

Only now, with the publication of her memoir, has she opened up for the first time about the battle with breast that caused her to lose all her hair, and threatened to derail her career and her life.

In Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond, Plumb writes that she had just taken on an off-Broadway role in June 2013, in a show called Unbroken Circle, when she received the terrifying diagnosis.

'It was an invigorating and happy time of my life,' she writes. 'I… felt that my career was being revived in a new way. Then it tumbled down, in an unexpected way, for a full year.'

Her husband, Ken Pace, had discovered a lump around the size of a walnut on her breast.

And even the initial biopsy was a massive wake-up call to the pain that was to come.

'I knew they weren't going to put me under or cut my skin,' she writes in the book, 'but I was unprepared for the test as it was like a spring-loaded needle that shot with incredible force through the lump.

'The shock of it piercing through so quickly was both physically and emotionally painful.

'Once I was alone, tears spilled from my eyes.'

Two days later, having just finished the matinee of the show, she received the phone call that was to upend her life.

There was no sugar coating. She was informed that she had cancer.

In that moment, she says, she zoned out, stumbling onto the sidewalk in a 'state of otherworldly blurred reality.'

She called Pace and somehow got through the evening performance.

'The angry and crying scenes came very easily to me that night,' she writes.

Determined to keep her diagnosis private, Plumb's agent deftly negotiated her way out of the theater contract without revealing to the production team the real reason.

Only a very few select friends were told about what was going on in her life at that time – people she knew she could trust to not spill the beans or dish out well-meaning but unwanted advice.

Her treatment plan included a course of chemo infusions, followed by radiation, before surgery to remove the lump.

And she deliberately opted for a very discreet treatment center where she hoped her identity would remain a secret.

'The one I chose had small private suites, with a recliner chair and a door that could be closed,' she writes. 

'I felt that it would be the best for me, but it did have a backfire element to it when every week, in a full waiting room, a nurse would call my name out loud when my chemo suite was ready.

'"Eve Plumb! Eve Plumb! You're next."'

Around a week into her treatment, her worst fears were realized when Pace received a call from The National Enquirer. The gossip newspaper had been tipped off to Plumb's cancer and wanted to know the full story.

Pace, taken by surprise, managed to feign ignorance before hanging up.

'He managed to respond in a composed manner that he didn't know what they were talking about,' writes Plumb.

'That was the closest we came to it leaking out.'

She describes losing her hair as a result of the treatment – an irony that wasn't lost on her.

As Jan Brady, her long blonde hair had been her signature, and she used to dream of a time when she would be older and could cut it all off.

'Now all I could do is watch it swirl around the shower drain, clump by clump.'

She adds: 'I don't think I understood how quickly I would go bald, but by Halloween I was thinking that I could paint my head silver and go to the NYC Village Halloween Parade as an alien.'

But no sooner had she got a wig, which gave her some sense of normality, than she lost her eyebrows and lashes as well.

'I had been wondering why my sense of smell had become so acute and then concluded that my nose hairs must have fallen out, too.'

Shortly after losing her hair, she received word that the old crew were getting together to film a show celebrating , who played mom Carol Brady, and who died, age 82, in 2016.

Unable to fly to LA because of her treatment, she filmed a brief segment instead, then called Henderson afterward to explain, privately, why she hadn't been able to make it.

'Before I had a chance to say another word, Florence promptly turned to the other cast members and said, "Eve didn't come because she's going through chemo for breast cancer."'

Plumb was shocked to be outed so suddenly and unceremoniously – but also thankful for the code of silence the 'Brady kids' had to never talk about each other's personal lives.

'Despite Florence spilling the news,' writes Plumb, 'my Brady castmates never spread the word and I continued treatments without any press about it.'

The chemo left her permanently exhausted. But finally, after radiation and surgery, she was pronounced 'cured' – her hair slowly growing back in soft 'feathers' and her energy beginning to return slowly.

She and Pace celebrated her being cancer-free by going on a vacation to Sweden – they called it her 'I didn't die' trip.

'It was like being set free and viewing it all with a fresh perspective,' she writes.

Now ten years in remission, she writes: 'Ken and I have traveled many, many more times during that decade, and we have no plans to stop.' 

Happiness Included: Jan Brady and Beyond by Eve Plumb is published by Citadel, an imprint of Penguin Random House, April 28.