The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star has also been filmed for months by E! reality cameras for an upcoming docuseries on Jenner’s coming out.
Bruce Jenner and Kim Kardashian
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Bruce Jenner, the Olympic gold medalist turned reality star, will soon discuss what the gossip press and gawkers have been wondering of late: Yes, Jenner is planning to sit down for an interview to come out as transgender and discuss transitioning. BuzzFeed News has confirmed that Diane Sawyer of ABC News was in the final stages of negotiating the interview as of last week.
Jenner's coming out will be timed with the announcement of a docuseries that has been following Jenner and the extended Kardashian-Jenner family, BuzzFeed News has also confirmed. The upcoming reality series will air on E!, the NBC Universal cable channel that has broadcast the lives of this famous family since 2007. That E!'s corporate sibling NBC News seemingly will not be landing the Jenner sitdown has caused internal consternation in the news division, as its booking war with ABC News continues to cause strife. NBC's only hope is that with the Kardashian-Jenners, anything can happen. A spokesperson for ABC News had no comment.
Jenner's changing appearance has confounded the tabloids, the paparazzi, and even some Kardashian-Jenners themselves in the past several years, showing how far behind we are in being able to discuss trans issues and gender fluidity with understanding or nuance, let alone the right vocabulary. Executives and publicists at NBC Universal are treating the Jenner project — internally and with the mainstream press — with secrecy, shrouding it in silence as if it's the transgender twist in The Crying Game. To those who have been horrified by Jenner being maliciously mocked, the company's actions are foreboding. Over the years, E!'s Keeping Up With the Kardashians and its offshoots have showcased the ups and downs of the family, including Kim Kardashian's divorce and Lamar Odom's drug addiction. Even so, the shows have clearly been staged, and have shown no sign that a story such as Jenner's could avoid exploitative, tee-hee trappings.
When asked by BuzzFeed News about the reports of a Jenner show, which escalated last week, a spokesperson for E! responded, "We are not commenting." Jenner's agent also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the absence of factual information furnished to the mainstream press, NBCU has continued to allow the story of Jenner's transition — which is, after all, in part a visual one fed by the paparazzi — to be told by the usual narrators of the Kardashians' doings: the gossip press. The family is known for their porous relationships with the outlets that cover each scandalous development in their lives, and even Jenner's life-changing trajectory has proven to be no different. Last week, those outlets' stories included, People's "Bruce Jenner Is 'Transitioning into a Woman,' Source Confirms to PEOPLE" on Friday; "Finally the Truth!" is the current cover of Us; "Bruce Jenner Decision to Become a Woman Made More Than a Year Ago," was one of several TMZ headlines in recent days; and RadarOnline blared, "Bruce Jenner To Address TRANSformation In 'Major Sit-Down Interview' & E! Docuseries."
And so Jenner's story has continued to be a lurid spectacle. The former track star, who turned 65 in October, now has long hair and is sometimes photographed with manicured hands, on top of past plastic surgeries. The combination, as well as Jenner's reticence on the subject, has created different strains of public projection. There has been both leave-Jenner-alone sympathy and, from segments of the LGBT community, please-join-us inclusion. But the evolution has also made Jenner an object of cruel ridicule — earlier this month, for instance, In Touch Weekly controversially photoshopped a picture of Jenner as a woman.
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