Under our own roof we now have six children, five daughters and a son. The house is awash in puberty and adolescence and young adulthood and two parents with very different styles. It seems to me something is there for television.
Kris says she is the one who came up with the idea and decided to actively pitch it to Ryan Seacrest, the host of the enormously popular American Idol and a television producer looking for projects…
Kris knows Seacrest. A meeting is held with him and he loves the concept. The next step is to meet with the E! network’s vice president of original programming, Lisa Berger. She is not so in love.
I don’t know if I get it. The only person in the room I know of is Bruce.
Seacrest keeps pushing. In 2007 Berger gives a tepid green light for four episodes, largely because I am in the public eye and maybe that’s a hook. It is now in its twelfth season and the most successful reality show in the history of television.
Everybody in my family has a different personality that is incorporated into the show. I am the well-meaning but confused and helpless father and husband. I get love but very little respect. I’m fine with that, because it is largely accurate. Plus I have stood on the public platform earlier in my life. I don’t need that anymore. The women on the show want to be out front, and that is cool with me.
I rarely watch unless I am actively involved in an episode. I know that my mother is embarrassed, as are other members of her family. In 2008 my aunt Ellie sends a letter to Kris and me to our home in Hidden Hills:
What a disappointment you are to your public, Bruce. I haven’t heard one complimentary thing from anyone yet. The consensus is that you look like a “milky-toast” and “henpecked husband” and stepfather. You do look very uncomfortable in every scene you are in.
The implication is that I have sold myself out, willingly destroyed what positive reputation I have left.
Pretty much on the mark.
I still feel weak and inferior. I still have no self-respect. I feel as trapped in the middle between male and female as I ever have been. So maybe it’s only fitting that I am treated on the show like a new version of electrolysis without painkillers: reality-show humiliation. But I don’t care. The impetus for doing it is that the money generated will create a healthy trust fund for all the Kardashian kids and especially for Kendall and Kylie. I hope the exposure parlays into something bigger, which it does: there is no family that is better known not just in America but maybe the world, given that the show is aired in 150 countries and all the kids have branched out so far beyond it.
If it seems like Kris intimidates me at times, that’s because she does. She was confident and sure of herself when I met her and becomes even more so as the show takes off. With me, it’s the flip side: I am more lacking in confidence and unsure of myself than I was when I met her. But I also wonder if the public’s perceptions of both of us are based on stereotypic roles of male and female behavior. The male in the household is supposed to be assertive, in control, the captain, particularly if the male is an Olympic gold medalist. Because I am not, I am labeled weak. Kris, on the other hand, as the female in the household, is supposed to be subservient, nonaggressive, letting the male make all the major decisions. Because she is not, she is often labeled as an overbearing bitch. We both play against expected gender type, and to a certain degree we are targeted for it.
From a deeply personal standpoint, Keeping Up with the Kardashians is a demarcation for Kris and me. I believe that the more successful it becomes, the less she needs me. I am not the primary breadwinner anymore. I feel increasingly irrelevant. I receive a healthy paycheck for doing the show, and I continue to do speeches, but I never see a dime of it: it all goes right to Kris. Plus, what I make is nothing compared to the kids because of all their other ventures. Kris, in addition to being the show’s executive producer, also takes a 10 percent cut from the Kardashian kids as the so-called Momager (she trademarked the title in 2015).
I do not have a checking account. I have a credit card, but purchases are carefully pored over. Kris is incredibly generous—on her own terms. She buys me a Porsche after I express interest in getting one but know I can’t (she does put the title in her name). She buys me a membership to the exclusive Sherwood for somewhere around $200,000 so I can play golf. They are amazing gestures, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for me not to make any financial decisions on my own.
Actually, I can’t make any.
What keeps me going, what always kept me going during much of the twenty-three years of marriage, was being a father to the Kardashians and Kendall and Kylie. I got heavily into carpooling, made tricky because at one point they attended several different schools. I often woke up at five thirty in the morning, then made sure the kids were fed and out the door by six thirty. Kourtney and Kim were going at the time to Marymount High School next to UCLA (Khloé had gone to a variety of schools, and I didn’t always carpool her). I dropped them off in the thick of traffic, then returned home. I picked up Kendall and Kylie and took them to preschool in Bel Air, which meant going through the traffic I just came back from, LA traffic. I dropped them off and then had to pick them up at twelve thirty and bring them home. Then I had to drive all the way back to pick up Kourtney and Kim from Marymount and take them home. This particular routine went on for three years. Some days it took six hours. Welcome to the life I had made for myself.
But I liked it. It was an opportunity to talk to the kids. It also got me out of the house. Kris rarely carpooled, particularly as the business of managing the Kardashians became increasingly thriving and complex. She also had me to do the driving. The more successful Kardashian Inc. (which includes Kendall and Kylie), the more obvious it is that Kris wants me out of the house as much as possible, probably because I really do nothing when I am around and it drives her crazy.
The gender issues are percolating again by the late 2000s. More than ever I crave going on the road and doing my hotel routine. The rise of the Internet over the previous decade has also opened up a new world for me. I can read the personal stories of people wondering if they should transition and watch them on YouTube and realize I am not the only one going through such torment as they cope with their own gender dysphoria. I read about trans men and women who, now that they have transitioned, celebrate themselves and for the first time in their lives love themselves for who they are.
I watch the medical procedures that can be performed, including the Final Surgery. I wonder more than ever what it would like to get rid of my penis one day, this silly and useless lump of skin that irritates the hell out of me. But watching the surgery is not pleasant. I don’t make it all the way through.
Another great benefit of the Internet is online shopping. I still need to be careful, so I don’t go crazy. Since Kris screens my purchases, I use someone else’s debit card. But I am lucky: if my family has more makeup per household than any in America, it also has more packages. How will they possibly notice a little one for me? But I am still paranoid. If there is one, I try to intercept it almost as soon as it is delivered. But sometimes I can’t get there in time. Then Kris retrieves it.
Oh, this is for you.
Thanks.
A bullet dodged.
I buy a few items of clothing, a couple of bras. Mostly it is silicone forms for your breasts and hips and buttocks. Maybe this sounds easy to you, but it’s not. My store of choice is the Breast Form Store. The selection is amazing on all fronts, but in breast forms alone there are such styles as Amoena, Amolux, Aphrodite, Divine, Gold Seal, NearlyMe, Platinum Seal, Silver Seal, and several more, not including ones for sleeping and travel and swimming. So it’s complicated. You don’t want one too small. You don’t want one too big. Each of the breast styles has a different feel. Plus there are nipple styles to choose from.
Thank God I went to college.
When it comes to forms for the buttocks, I keep two sizes in my little closet—a small one and one a little bigger, depending on my mood. I al
so learn early on that the gel ones are much better than the padded ones. The gel ones look real. The padded ones look like you have padding.
After many years of experimentation and practice, I am really getting my routine down. To wear a wig right you need to tamp down and hide your hair as much as possible so that it almost feels like you are putting the wig on your bare skull. I have seen movies where people wear skullcaps before putting on wigs. But I don’t know where to buy one, so I start using a stocking one of the kids or Kris has left lying around. Then I just start going to the grocery store—meats, vegetables, fish, cashews, and a couple of pairs of stockings and pantyhose “for the missus.” Then I see on television the caps competitive swimmers wear, so I go to an athletic apparel store and buy a couple. They really work well and I think I have found the perfect solution, but to be honest they are a little tight around the cranium and become uncomfortable after a while.
Whatever I use—stocking or swimming cap—I tuck all my hair inside it and pull it over the ear and down in back so nothing is showing. Then I use a roll of clear packing tape I bought at the pharmacy and cut two pieces into three-inch strips. Then I tear them perfectly down the middle so now there are four strips, each a half inch in width. I carefully lay them on the counter so they don’t get all tangled up and start sticking to one another. Then I apply a single drop of Krazy Glue to the end of each strip.
But never more than one drop!
The excess will seep everywhere if you apply more than one, and it will be a royal pain to clean up. I place the Krazy Glue end of the tape on my skin about a quarter-inch below the makeshift skullcap. I use a cloth to wipe off any excess, then apply the other end of the tape to the skullcap, smoothing it down as much as possible. This has the effect of getting rid of a lot of skin around the eyebrows by pushing the skin up. As I get older and jowls appear I also use the clear tape and Krazy Glue method behind the ear (don’t pull too much, just a little). Then I use the tape and glue to give my forehead just a little lift. Finally I take a piece of tape and wrap it around the skullcap so nothing moves.
Voila!
A mini facelift, and it probably cost ten bucks.
I am proud to say my face looks pretty damn good and makes it very difficult for anyone to recognize me as Bruce. It has been achieved only after extensive trial and error. Many different styles of tapes are used. The Krazy Glue is quite genius, if I say so myself. I realized that when I sweat, none of the tape, no matter how sticky, would work. I could not afford to have my eyebrows suddenly start drooping down. So I searched for an alternative method, which is when it popped into my head that doctors sometimes use a similar substance on cuts instead of stitches.
There is only one drawback to Krazy Glue: it can sometimes stick to your skin so much that it takes a little piece of skin with it when you pull it off (another reason to be careful about how much you use!). This on occasion has created mysterious red dots on my forehead, but fortunately I have makeup to cover it.
After I perform my little facelift, I do my makeup. Then I put my wig on, which always has bangs so none of the clear strips show.
Another issue is waistline. You want a tight one. But men in general don’t have a good one: our waist is too wide. Women have a much smaller waist area and more defined buttocks.
I buy a big box of clear plastic wrap (any brand will do). I take the roller out of the box. I start at my side and wrap it around my waist and lower chest four or five times. It has the effect of a girdle but is much thinner and lighter. Then I put on Spanx or something similar to further tighten.
Voilà!
I have taken four inches off my waist.
I look better and better, more and more like a woman, or more precisely the image I have of what I should look like as a woman.
But these are Band-Aids. I am becoming increasingly unhappy, feeling more and more worthless and invisible, sleepwalking through life until it is over. I also think about my dad, who died in 2000 at the age of seventy-seven. He had cancer and then it spread. I had a home in Lake Tahoe, California, at the time and he had been living there, his marriage to my mom ending in divorce after forty-one years. I wasn’t in Tahoe when he died because I was on a business trip. Several days earlier I had come into his room.
I just want you to know that you are a really good dad. You raised great children, you were a really great inspiration to me.
I love you, son.
And I love you too, Dad.
He drifted off after this. I left the room and never saw him again. He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, where he had always hoped to be buried and where he belonged.
The last day I saw him, he said something else in a quiet whisper.
I never should’ve made it this long.
I knew he was talking about Omaha Beach and the sheer luck of surviving while so many others died. It stirred something inside me, not about war and duty and sacrifice but that there really isn’t a second to waste in life, that you must do what you must do before it’s too late and your luck is over.
Kris and I have been married for more than twenty years. The first fifteen or so were good and sometimes great.
But the last five have been terrible, and I know that Kris in her heart of hearts will agree. The challenge for any marriage is that we constantly change as we grow older. For a successful marriage you have to grow together. We didn’t come close.
We are at each other’s throats. She is frustrated with me all the time. I am worn down. She yells and then I yell back because I always feel on the defensive. She resents that I never want to leave the house unless it means a hotel room somewhere, that I am content to sit around and watch the History Channel. She resents that I really don’t do anything besides tapings for the show.
I don’t feel like I am living anymore. I need control of my life back. I need control of my finances so I can spend money the way I want to. The house is like a train station, people in and out, out and in. I have no privacy to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I am tired of taking it out on the road so I can spend an hour and a half to get dressed for fifteen minutes of freedom. I want to see my first four children without friction and the fear that it might upset Kris. I am tired of my life consisting of secret items tucked away in a tiny closet with a lock and key.
I cannot go on like this.
Chapter Twelve
Faith
I move into a house in Malibu on the ocean, a significant upgrade from my last rental there. I am alone. In the past I experienced such isolation and loneliness when I was alone, but I don’t feel either of those now.
I feel free.
I have also started to try to repair my relationships with the four oldest Jenner children now that they are adults.
There is a lot to fix. I know that. But at least we are beginning to talk regularly. It is a blessed occurrence. But as liberated as I feel about my new life, I still feel uncertain about transition. I am still grappling just as I am considering cosmetic steps to make myself look more feminine.
I schedule a consultation in December 2013 for what is known as a tracheal shave to reduce the size of my Adam’s apple, since males have bigger ones than females. My assistant Ronda Kamihira and I enact an elaborate scheme to avoid detection since such a procedure is often perceived as a precursor to transition. We decide upon a two-prong approach:
We schedule the appointment as if it is for Ronda, using a phony name. We drive to the medical building in Beverly Hills. Ronda goes in first and I trail behind to avoid any suggestion that we are there as a couple (the tabloids would eat up the story: SAYONARA, KRIS, EX-HUBBY-TO-BE HAS NEW HOTTIE). We get safely inside with no paparazzi attacks (they can be anywhere within minutes because of tips from paid snitches for the tabloids, not to mention passersby who take video with their smartphones and then try to sell it). Ronda checks in and I act as if I am just there for moral support. We go into the doctor’s office together for the consultation, and it is only then
in total privacy we tell him it is actually for me. We leave the same way we came, as if we are separate. Then we jump in the car and we drive home.
Roughly twenty-four hours later…
I am in my car when the phone rings. It is Harvey Levin of TMZ, the notorious gossip channel and website that revels in destroying others to the sound of its twentysomething employees laughing and tittering as they recount their gotchas on camera with Harvey sipping out of a cup taller than he is.
The call surprises me. Actually, it sickens me, since there is no one you would rather hear from less if you are in the public eye.
I pull off to the side of the road.
We heard you went in to have a consultation for a tracheal shave. I have been told that’s the beginning steps of transition. It’s a huge story.
How does he know all the details? The meeting with the doctor was totally private.
I am flustered. My back is to the wall.
I just never liked my trachea.
I have confirmed that I am thinking of having the procedure done. Which will be used by TMZ to suggest that I am in the beginning stages of transitioning into a woman.
Harvey, don’t do this to me.
This is a huge story.
Harvey, please don’t do this to me.
He keeps talking, but he doesn’t respond to the plea.
Harvey, I haven’t even spoken to all my children yet about this.
He just keeps talking.
By printing this stuff, you destroy lives.
He just keeps talking.
The Secrets of My Life Page 19
