14 DAY TRIAL // The E! docuseries I Am Cait premiered last Sunday, and despite immense buzz online following the April special with Diane Sawyer and the June Vanity Fair cover, it fell short of expectations, getting only about 2.73 million people to tune in.
This is no small achievement for a reality show, but it’s peanuts compared to the 17 million the Sawyer special got. Caitlyn herself expected the docuseries to do better and she’s upset she’s proving to be a less successful reality star than her ex Kris Jenner, Radar Online reports.
Caitlyn thought she’d be better than the Kardashians
Sources close to the situation tell the glossy that Caitlyn imagined that her being the world’s most famous trans-person would automatically make her a bigger reality star than Kris and the entire Kardashian clan. The ratings for the premiere episode of the docuseries have proved her wrong, and that’s a realization she’s struggling to accept.
“Caitlyn is unhappy with the numbers, and hates losing to Kris Jenner, and the rest of the Kardashian family. There has been tremendous pressure on Caitlyn, and she feels that she has let the transgender community down. Caitlyn isn’t happy with how E! has been promoting the show, relying on clips from I Am Cait,” says a source.
E! isn’t happy either, thinking Caitlyn should have done more press to promote the series, instead of limiting herself to a handful of public appearances. They invested a lot of money into making this and it’s proving it’s not paying off.
“Caitlyn Jenner fatigue” is a real thing
The same report offers another possible explanation for the disappointing ratings of the docuseries: the so-called “Caitlyn Jenner fatigue.”
Since the April interview, which saw Bruce Jenner come out as trans-woman, Caitlyn has been in the news daily, sometimes with even more than one, or three stories. At the same time, the public has been bombarded with countless paparazzi photos, op-eds on Caitlyn’s contribution to the LGBT community and even on her newfound feminine style.
As with every other topic, the public must have grown tired of hearing about Cait so much.
Her kids, the Kardashian and Jenner girls, have been in the public eye long enough to understand that this could end up backfiring, so they warned her to wait for a few more months before getting her own show. She chose not to.
She even ignored the negative media attention around the February crash she caused in Malibu, which killed one of the drivers of the 4 vehicles involved in it. Even though the children advised her to wait to see how this was resolved, she insisted on pushing forward with the docuseries.