Yikes.
There’s a new behind-the-scenes book about the Kardashian family called “Kardashian Dynasty,” by Ian Halperin, and it shares lots of new and bizarre tidbits about the family we can’t help but hate and be obsessed with. The most interesting and sad tidbit, however, is that the book claims longtime friends of Caitlyn Jenner allege that the celebrity-formerly-known-as-Bruce Jenner went public with her gender transition when she did to distract from possible manslaughter charges AND that Kris Jenner spent years urging Bruce to pray away his desire for change. SOUNDS PRETTY EFFED UP. Here are some highlights from Page Six:
The February 2015 crash – in which Jenner, then still Bruce, was alleged to be driving at an unsafe speed – led to the death of 69-year-old Kim Howe, and could have caused Jenner to be charged with manslaughter. Jenner publicly came out as transgender in late April, and revealed herself as Caitlyn in an interview with Vanity Fair in early June. According to the magazine, the interview had been in the works for three months, which puts its genesis around the beginning of March.
“Before Bruce got into the accident, he gave the world hints about his true sexuality,” Halperin quotes the friend as saying. “After the accident, he went full steam ahead. I truly believe he was trying to misdirect the negative publicity he received after the car crash….it was clear he was worried about being charged.”
Halperin also spoke to an NCAA coach “who had known Jenner for years,” and had been in contact with Jenner recently. The coach revealed that Kris Jenner, Caitlyn’s former wife and the mastermind matriarch of the Kardashian empire, “had influenced him to suppress his desire to be a woman for all those years. ‘She told him he should pray,’ he reveals, ‘that church could help heal him.”
Halperin notes that this sounds “suspiciously like ‘conversion therapy,” adding that “the idea of using religion to suppress homosexuality has a troubling history associated with evangelical Christianity, especially during the 80s and 90s, when the idea gained momentum in various Christian ministries throughout the United States.”
Throughout the book, Halperin documents Kris Jenner’s associations with questionable church figures, including several who clearly promoted homophobia.
When she first connected with Robert Kardashian, famous O.J. Simpson friend and father of Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, and Rob Kardashian, they attended bible studies led by conservative singer Pat Boone, who was “a fierce critic of any number of liberal causes, from the pro-choice to the gay rights movements.”
Years later, Halperin writes, Kris was a regular attendee at the Calvary Community Church in Westlake, California, a church “long associated with homophobic positions,” including firing a member of their executive team in 2012 for coming out as gay, noting during the firing that “it would never be accepted by the congregation.” Kris and (pre-transition) Bruce were “especially taken” with the church’s pastor, Brad Johnson, who built a 4,000-member congregation with “his hip, irreverent style.”
The book talks about even grosser stuff- like how Kris had a hand in the engineering and release of Kim Kardashian’s sex tape and image. None of this surprises me, but every time I hear it I puke a little in my mouth. Sigh.
Will you read the book?
Photo: FameFlynet
