Caitlyn Jenner and Kris Jenner split seven years ago, but Caitlyn is just starting to open up about why. On Rob Lowe‘s podcast, Literally!, she explained why her coming out as transgender in 2015 had less to do with their split than many may believe.
“I was never comfortable with my identity, even as a very young kid,” she said. “I was fascinated by my sister's clothes, never comfortable in my own shoes, fascinated with all that kind of stuff. But, you keep your mouth shut, you know? I'm talking the '50s and '60s. Transgender wasn't even a word back then. So I found ways to just distract myself from those feelings. Sports — what a great way to do that. Prove your manhood. But those feelings … it was always there.”
“My distraction was going to work, and then eventually it became family, it became all these things,” she continued. “And of course my kids yelled at me: 'Is that all we were? A distraction?' I go, 'No, no, no!' I loved being a dad.”
Caitlyn shares Brandon and Brody Jenner with ex-wife Linda Thompson, daughter Cassandra Marino and son Burt Jenner with ex-wife Chrystie Crownover, daughter Kendall and Kylie Jenner with Kris. She also helped raise Kourtney, Khloe and Rob Kardashian with Kris.
“I had 10 kids — raised six genetic, four step. Raised these amazing, amazing kids,” she said. “It's what I've been able to accomplish and I'm very proud of that. I'm proud of all my kids. All 10 of them. They've all done amazing.”
Caitlyn admits that before she met Kris, she was at a low point. “I just couldn't go any further,” she recalled. “And I thought to myself, 'You've got to get on with life. … If I can't transition — because I can't do it, okay? — I've got to move on in life.'”
Then Kris. She says they “hit it off from day one.”
“We were married five and a half months later. She had four kids, I had four kids, we tried our best to try to blend that family. Never an easy job,” she said. “But we kind of blended this family the best that we possibly could. Kris kind of came in and took over. She was honestly a Beverly Hills housewife at the time, but she was always around very strong businesspeople and had great skills.”
“She just started getting the ball rolling again, because I had not for the last six years. The rest is kind of history,” she continued. “That was the next 23 years. Kris and I had two kids — Kendall and Kylie. They've done okay for themselves.”
Kris also knew that Caitlyn had “issues, but I never thought that at some point down the line, 25 years later, that I would ever transition,” she said. “It wasn't a possibility. I was in this, I was going to be committed to the family, but these are my issues, this is what I deal with. She was okay. And so we just went on with life and again, the distraction thing. Which my kids hate when I say that, but it's not them — a distraction from myself. And they were wonderful.”
“Then we started doing the show, everybody's working, they were great years,” she continued. “I didn't think it was at all possible at those times in my life. … That went on for years and years and years.”
And when they parted? The transition wasn’t the main issue. “After 23 years, Kris and I went our separate directions. My identity, it was not a big part of us separating,” Caitlyn said. “There were so many other bigger issues out there. The only thing, I think, because of my frustration with myself, I might have been a little bit shorter with her near the end. But there was a lot of things going on.”
“And then all of a sudden, we didn't have any issues, it was calm,” she recalled. “'You know it's not working, I know it's not working, you have this house, I'll go find another place.' And she even found the place. She decorated the place. She did everything in Malibu. She said, 'I want you to feel comfortable.' And that was it.”