14 DAY TRIAL // All the speculation around Bruce Jenner’s alleged transition from male to female will be put to rest on April 24, when ABC News will air a 2-hour interview with the former Olympian turned reality star. The Wrap confirms the air date for the special.
Rumor of this sit-down has been around since earlier this year; in February, insiders with the network told the media that it would air in spring, but no one from either camp would confirm it on the record.
Bruce will put all his cards on the table
ABC is still keeping mum on what the interview will be about, saying only that it will be “far-ranging.” Even so, it is believed that Bruce can and will only talk about his transition, his struggle to keep his real identity a secret for all these years and the steps he’s taken in recent months to become the person he was born to be.
Rumors that he’s transitioning to female emerged online some months before he separated from wife of 23 years Kris Jenner, and picked up speed in the months after their divorce was finalized. The rumor mill went into overdrive these past few months.
Just last week, word got out that he’d undergone breast enhancement and that he’d have full gender reassignment surgery in May or June. He would come out on Sawyer and then continue with the transition, planning to reveal his final look later this year.
According to insiders, Bruce would like to compete on Dancing With the Stars, which would double as his outing as a trans-woman, thus bringing more awareness to the LGBT community.
“Bruce Jenner - The Interview” has “David Sloan [as] the senior executive producer, Mark Robertson and Jessica Velmans [as] senior producers, and Margaret Dawson and Sean Dooley [as] lead producers,” The Wrap says.
Why the secrecy?
So now that ABC News has confirmed the Sawyer interview, one may be excused for wondering out loud: why all this secrecy? We don’t mean Bruce Jenner’s desire to keep certain things private, because he’s entitled to it. After all, this is his life, even though he occasionally overshares with the fans via the family’s reality show.
Because ABC doesn’t want to confirm that the interview will focus on Jenner’s transition, there’s a slight chance that it might not even be about that. Now this would be an unexpected surprise.
Most media outlets and fans are convinced that we’ll be seeing Bruce come out as a trans-woman on April 24, but that doesn’t mean that this is what will happen. It could be that he merely agreed to the interview in order to talk about how much he’s hurt by the widely circulated assumption that he’s turning himself into a woman, when the thought hasn’t even crossed his mind.
The bottom line is, unless ABC says something about it or until we get to see the first promo for the exclusive, we have no way of knowing for certain.