Why I Dream of Jeannie’s Barbara Eden Slipped Into Iconic Costume “by Accident” 50 Years Later

If wishes were horses, Barbara Eden still wouldn’t have ridden in her original costume. 

After all, according to the-now 95-year-old, she’d originally given the organizers of the 2013 Life Ball in Vienna an unequivocal “no” when they asked if the then-81-year-old to appear at the charity event in her original I Dream of Jeannie costume.

“I didn’t want to do it. I’ll tell you that,” Eden told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Aug. 23. “I said, ‘Look, I’m not going to put the Jeannie costume on. There’s no way this older woman is going to put it on. So do something […] if you can cover up my arms.’”

So, while she did have an alternative, more modest option made, fate intervened.

According to the TV star—who played the titular genie on the beloved series throughout its 1965 to 1970 run—it “was an accident” that her original costume had made it to Austria, all thanks to the friend helping her pack.

“She said, ‘Just take it, just in case,’” Eden recalled. “I said, ‘There’ll be no just in case. I’ll be naked before I put that on.’ Guess what? She put it in my suitcase.”