Bruce Jenner Confirms Transitioning into Woman During Interview with Diane Sawyer
In a long-awaited interview with Diane Sawyer, Bruce Jenner revealed he is, in fact, a woman.
“Yes, and for all intents and purposes, I am a woman,” Bruce Jenner told Diane Sawyer within the first five minutes of his highly anticipated 20/20 interview on April 24.
Bruce Jenner said he began the process in the 1980s, after a lifetime of feeling uncomfortable in his skin.
He said this is the last time he will be known as Bruce Jenner – but didn’t reveal a new name yet.
The former Olympian said during the sit-down: “It’s going to be tough. I’ve been thinking about this day forever and what I should do with my life… how do I tell people what I’ve been through? Today is that day, and I get to choose.”
During the 1980s, Bruce Jenner began taking female hormones and continued doing so for five years. He confided in his older sister and admitted dressing up in her clothes when younger.
Bruce Jenner says he dreams as a woman.
Eventually, he stopped taking the female hormones because he didn’t want to disappoint people.
He has been back on female hormones for the past year and a half.
Bruce Jenner says throughout the years, we have seen him out in public dressed as a woman but he wasn’t recognized.
His announcement comes after longtime speculation that he was transitioning to female.
However, he maintained: “I’m not gay.”
While Bruce and third wife Kris Jenner divorced in 2014, he confessed: “I loved Kris, I had a wonderful life with her. I learned a lot from her.”
The interview touched on several key points in Bruce Jenner’s personal history, like his resurgence of stardom thanks to family reality series Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
He said: “We’ve done 425 episodes, I think, over almost 8 years. Over the entire run, I kept thinking to myself, <<Oh my god. this whole thing, the one real true story in the family was the one I was hiding and nobody knew about it>>.”
“The one thing that could really make a difference in people’s lives was right here in my soul, and I couldn’t tell it.”
At one moment of the special, Diane Sawyer spoke about how different generations received Bruce Jenner: some know her as the patriarch of reality clan the Kardashians, and others a world class athlete.
The former Olympian responded: “God said, <<Let’s give him the soul of a female, and let’s see how he deals with that>>.”
Bruce Jenner says he was terrified to tell his children, as he did not want to hurt them.
He first told son Brandon, 33, who tells Sawyer that his father was very nervous during their conversation.
“When you’re that close to somebody, you notice little things … I feel like I am getting an upgraded version of my dad.”
Bruce Jenner, who happily showed Sawyer a black lace dress in his closet, says he will always be Dad to his children.
At the time of the interview, Bruce Jenner says his daughters have been reluctant to see the person he calls “her.”
Bruce Jenner says Kim Kardashian has been the most accepting, saying: “Girl, you gotta rock it baby… you gotta look really good.”
The two-hour special was long expected to be Bruce Jenner’s official announcement that he is undergoing gender reassignment, which had been widely speculated on for months.