‘The Brady Bunch’: Why Florence Henderson Was Against This Cast Member’s Marriage to a Reality Star
The Brady Bunch remains a cherished sitcom despite its final episode airing over 50 years ago. Florence Henderson will always be remembered as matriarch Carol Brady holding down the fort with her six kids: Greg (Barry Williams), Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Peter (Christopher Knight), Jan (Eve Plumb), Bobby (Mike Lookinland), and Cindy (Susan Olsen).
Up until her death in 2016, Henderson considered her younger cast mates as family. Her maternal concern prompted her to speak up when her former co-star planned to tie the knot with an America’s Next Top Model winner.
Christopher Knight ties the knot with Adrianne Curry
Reality star Adrianne Curry was the first winner of America’s Next Top Model in 2003. The following year, she starred on season 4 VH1’s The Surreal Life and met fellow cast member Knight.
After the series ended, the two began dating. The cable network suggested a show featuring the couple, with their relationship as the main focus. Knight was concerned that the 2005 series My Fair Brady would be too much of a departure from his Peter Brady persona.
“When you’re ‘A Brady’ and have never really fallen off the Brady truck, it’s a little suffocating,” Knight explained to PR.com. You haven’t even defined for yourself. The world has defined for you.”
The actor also commented on being judged for their 24-year age difference, especially in light of his clean-cut Brady Bunch fame.
“It’s just that anybody my age is going to look at somebody who is essentially the age of their children as being… ‘What is he doing??’ is essentially what they’re thinking,” Knight remarked.
Carol Brady weighs in on the nuptials
Once Knight proposed to Curry on My Fair Brady, plans of their 2006 wedding brought in some skepticism from his onscreen mom.
“When Christopher Knight was doing The Surreal Life, he was very much involved with this person he had met on the set,” Henderson said at the time, according to the New York Post. “They [VH1] were trying to actually, I think, force him to get engaged.”
The input from The Brady Bunch matriarch didn’t sit well with the bride. Curry took to her MySpace page (remember, this is several years ago) to vent her frustration.
“I am sorry she is acting this way, and am a little embarrassed for her,” Curry wrote, as reported by E! News. “I was nothing but nice to her when we met, and she had it out for me before I said a word. … I just wish she could be more professional about this. It’s weird to have someone on the level of Mr Rogers and Barney hate you. I must be the bad child ;)”
Florence Henderson was still considered a ‘mom’ by Christopher Knight
Apparently, The Brady Bunch alums were able to mend fences and maintain a strong affection for each other. After Henderson’s death, Knight commented on how he had considered her more than a TV mother.
“I may have lost a cast mate, a good friend and a role model, and really my second mom — but so did the rest of America,” Knight told People in 2016. “Pleasing her and having her respect and her guidance is something I always sought. … I’m really grateful that she was in my life.”
Transparent in the past about his difficult home life growing up, Knight was able to lean on Henderson during some tough times.
“For a long time, she probably didn’t know how much she meant to me,” The Brady Bunch alum shared. “There was some difficulty in my own family with my own mom — and I had an alternate mom that I could use at moments when my own wasn’t working for me.”
Knight and Curry divorced in 2013.
