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Kim Kardashian: We don't have to 'fully understand' Bruce Jenner gender transition
Kim Kardashian interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's "TODAY" on April 2015. Credit: NBC
By FRANK LOVECE. Special to Newsday Updated April 27, 2015 7:01 PM
Kim Kardashian is applauding her stepfather Bruce Jenner's transition to womanhood, saying, "I think as long as he is happy and he wants to live his life however he wants to live it, that just makes me happy and I support him 100 percent."
The reality TV star told Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today" show on Monday that Olympics icon Jenner, 65, "has found inner peace and just pure happiness. That's what life is about."
Kardashian, 34, conceded that her family -- three siblings, two half-siblings and mother Kris Jenner -- continue to go through "an adjustment," but assured that, "We all really support him. Is it a hard adjustment? Yes. . . . It's an adjustment on how to deal with it and it's a daily process."
Lauer asked if there had been family meetings to discuss the transition. "There were lots of family meetings," Kardashian replied, saying the clan experienced "every emotion you could possibly imagine."
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Kardashian said Jenner -- who revealed on ABC's "20/20" Friday that he has been undergoing hormone therapy for a year and a half, though he has not undergone sexual-reassignment surgery -- is prepared for the spotlight being thrown on him. "I think that when you are finally ready to be your true self then you're prepared for anything."
She congratulated him for his ability to be his "true self" saying that she is happy that he is living his life the way he wants to live it. She said, "It's not something that you or I could fully understand, but I don't even think we have to."
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Kardashian also revealed that her family has consulted with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization GLAAD and other groups on how to be supportive and respectful of Jenner. She said that until his transition is complete the family is using male pronouns to refer to him.
Meanwhile, on ABC's "Good Morning America," Chrystie Crownover, the first of Jenner's three wives, said she and other family members watched a telecast of the "20/20" interview alongside Jenner. "[It] was kind of surreal," Crownover said, but added. "It was great because the family was together and that's what I'm most proud of."
During their 1972 to 1981 marriage, Crownover was the first person to whom Jenner confided his desire to be a woman. "Understandably, I was speechless," Crownover told "GMA." "I didn't really know what to stay. I was really pleased that he shared that intimacy with me, that he trusted me with his deepest, darkest secret."
Jenner has two children with her and another two with second wife Linda Thompson.
Those children, son Burt and daughter Casey from his marriage to Crownover, and sons Brandon and Brody from his marriage to Thompson, told Diane Sawyer in a segment that aired Monday on "GMA" how their father's gender identity struggle made him "vanish" for long periods early on in their lives.
"We have a very complex relationship," Cassandra "Casey" Marino, 34, said in the interview. "He's disappeared out of our lives. Especially out of my life. So, I'm looking forward to this next chapter."
"Us missing, you know, a time of our lives is still probably the hardest thing for us to deal with," Brandon Jenner, 33, said. "We're trying not to look back, we're just looking forward."
Bruce Jenner, who admitted in the interview that he "didn't do a good job" raising his older children due to his depression and feelings of isolation, said that he has apologized to them. The older Jenner offspring, who are all in their 30s, subsequently said on "GMA" that they have all forgiven their father.
With The Associated Press
By FRANK LOVECE. Special to Newsday
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