Barbara Eden Explains Why Jeannie and Major Nelson Never Had Sex
There was always a leering wink hidden behind the laughs of I Dream of Jeannie. As Bill Maher drooled over Barbara Eden last week on his Club Random podcast, he laid bare the lecherous fantasy behind the show’s concept. A beautiful, scantily clad harem girl shows up in a bachelor’s apartment, sworn to use her magical powers to do anything to please him? No wonder Maher’s adolescent imagination ran wild at the possibilities. “It was all working for me,” he told the 94-year-old sitcom star.
But Eden told Maher to get his mind out of the gutter. “The bottle was never allowed in the bedroom,” she told him, suggesting that while Jeannie was dedicated to pleasing her master (ugh), there were limits to the offer.
Even if Jeannie was willing — she married handsome astronaut Tony Nelson and even went on a honeymoon, for Pete’s sake — Eden insisted that the relationship couldn’t be consummated. “She wasn’t real!” she protested, meaning that Jeannie wasn’t a real human.
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“She was real to me!” countered Maher, still caught up in his boyhood delusions.
“She was an entity,” Eden argued. “If you think of the text of the show, well, genies are not human and she thought she was. (Tony) knew she wasn’t.”
To be fair to Maher, perhaps Eden was the one being naive about the sitcom’s concept. Sure, Jeannie wasn’t technically a human being, but neither were all the buxom aliens who made out with James T. Kirk on Star Trek. Samantha on Bewitched wasn’t a normal human either, but she had two kids by a couple of Darrens. Mork and Mindy eventually made a baby as well.
And let’s not forget that Jeannie threw herself at Tony all the time, so kissing was no problem. At what point in their many passionate embraces did being an “entity” get in the way?
Driven by those sitcom memories, Maher couldn’t let the subject of sex go. He proposed setting up and managing an OnlyFans account for the nonagenarian, guaranteeing her that she’d make a fortune. “I’ll take a very reasonable 20 percent,” he offered.
Eden, being 94 and not a creep like Maher, had no idea what he was talking about. The host was all too happy to spell it out in terms that were more graphic than necessary. “It’s women masturbating or showing their vaginas to men who are paying them electronically to watch them,” Maher explained. “And it’s very, very popular. Millions of women. It’s a big thing.”
Eden wasn’t shocked by the idea. “Hasn’t it always been that?” she asked, a veteran of an industry that profited from images of beautiful women.
Maher continued to describe the online offerings of Pornhub and OnlyFans to Eden, who wondered why the women wouldn’t wear bags over their heads. “I hate to have been the one to have brought you that news,” Maher said, a dubious lament since she never asked him to discuss it.
Eden laughed: “I will always remember it.”
And just like Jeannie never allowed the bottle in the bedroom, Eden showed no intention of taking Maher up on his OnlyFans offer.
