Maureen McCormick knows how to whip up some excitement for the fifth season of VH1's Celebrity Fit Club. If the sight of the overweight 50-year-old former teen idol spinning around in her underwear before the weigh-ins doesn't do it for you, then the fantasy of a coked-up, binging-and-purging, out-of-control Marcia Brady just might.
Maureen goes above and beyond the call of PR duty for a D-list celebrity freak show with a tragic two-fer confessional, vomiting up secrets in the new issue of People magazine that she could have saved for a book: 'fessing up to bulimia and cocaine abuse at the height of her Brady Bunch fame.
What's most amazing is that she held these deep dark secrets for more than thirty years-- long after the residuals dried up, through all the lean times and nostalgia revivals-- only to give them away!
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!
Maureen tells People she developed the eating disorder when she was a young actress, filling up on ice cream and then puking it up so she wouldn't gain weight. "It seemed ideal," she says. "Once I started, it was hard to stop."
She says she was a teenager, back in public school, when a boyfriend turned her on to cocaine. ""He was friends with people who did drugs. I have a very addictive personality. I know that now."
She was able to kick the coke, she says, through years of therapy-- and her faith. Then she stopped vomiting. "Being able to quit drugs and finding belief in a higher power gave me the tools to end the bulimia."
The one victim of her secret movie-of-the-week life? Mo's teenage daughter. She'll never get away with anything because mama says she'll recognize the signs. "She knows what I've been through. I hope that keeps her from making those same mistakes."
The fifth season of Fit Club launches on April 15th.
(Coincidence Department: Just last Friday, we caught the The Brady Bunch Hawaii trilogy on TV Land-- all three episodes, back-to-back, with special guest stars Don Ho and Vincent Price. Great locations, thrilling plot, fabulous wardrobe-- but Maureen was shortchanged, as the main focus was on the Brady men...)