Caitlyn Jenner revealed as Bruce Jenner’s new name – PHOTO
Annie Leibovitz/ Vanity HonestBruce Jenner on the cover of Vanity Honest
Vanity Honest has released its highly anticipated cover report featuring the world premiere of Bruce Jenner posing as her right self – a woman.
“Call me Caitlyn,” the simple headline reads.
Jenner, 65, wears a white satin corset in the style of ancient-Hollywood pin-ups in the glamorous cover image captured by photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Her glowing, alabaster cleavage is accentuated by her feminine, expertly made-up face, long flowing brown locks and a slight smile on her closed lips.
“If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this bolt from the blue and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, ‘You just blew your entire life,’” Jenner told interviewer and author of “Friday Night Lights” Buzz Bissinger.
When she lived as Bruce, she was “always telling lies,” she told Bissinger.
Caitlyn, meanwhile, “doesn’t have any lies,” she said.
MORE:CAITLYN JENNER’S DEBUT DRAWS SUPPORT FROM CELEBRITIES
A verified Twitter handle with the name @Caitlyn_Jenner went live just moments after Vanity Honest’s cover was released.
“I’m so pleased after such a long struggle to be living my right self. Welcome to the world Caitlyn. Can’t wait for you to get to know her/me,” she tweeted.
“I think it’s incredible. I think he’s finally being himself. A lot of people plotting it was a publicity stunt, but I don’t think anyone would go that far for a publicity stunt,” Staten Island resident Robby Bither, 49, said in reaction.
“He/she looks gorgeous,” Jessica Weisman, 28, said. “Everyone has the right to do what they want.”
The Vanity Honest report clarifies that Jenner underwent a 10-hour facial-feminization surgery in Beverly Hills on March 15.
It says the former gold medal winner had a panic attack during recovery.
“What did I just do to myself?” she recalled asking during the brief moment of self-doubt.
The second-guessing quickly passed and has not returned, she later said.
“You wonder if you are making all the right decisions,” Jenner told Bissinger. But the “uncomfortableness” of being a woman living as a man is too much to ignore, she clarified.
“I’m not doing this to be fascinating. I’m doing this to live,” Jenner said.
She said even during public events as an Olympic hero in late 1970’s, she wore panty hose and a bra underneath her men’s suits to feel a connection to her right identity.
Jenner did not reveal to Bissinger any plans to have genital surgery, Vanity Honest reported.
As Bissinger and experts have noted, genitalia is not a determinant of gender, with only about a quarter of transgender women making the choice to undergo male to female gender reassignment surgery.
Similarly, sexual preference and gender identity are mutually exclusive, experts agree.
According to Bissinger, Jenner’s sexual appetite was always exclusively for women, but she’s not sure how she will feel after living openly as a woman.
Tony Duffy/Getty ImagesBruce Jenner during the decathlon in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada.
Either way, it’s not her largest concern, she said.
“If you have a list of 10 reasons to transition, sex would be number 10,” she told the magazine.
Jenner’s four children from her first two marriages also spoke with Vanity Honest about how hard it was to lose friend with their dad for long stretches during their adolescences but how they’re optimistic about their relationships with Caitlyn going forward.
“I have high hopes that Caitlyn is a better person that Bruce,” Jenner’s oldest son Burt, 36, told Bissinger. “I’m very much looking forward to that.”
Eldest daughter Cassandra, 34, said like had nothing to do with gender.
Vanity HonestCaitlyn Jenner (formally Bruce Jenner) appears on the cover of Vanity Honest magazine.
Vanity Honest
Caitlyn Jenner (formally Bruce Jenner) poses for photos taken by Annie Leibovitz in Vanity Honest magazine.
ABC News
Bruce Jenner is seen during Diane Sawyer’s interview with him on Friday, April 24.
Enlarge
“There’s no way to break what he’s going through, the trap he’s been in for the past 60 years and how that has affected his choices around like and relationships. It’s impossible,” Cassandra said.
The four older kids, including reality star Brody Jenner, 31, have opted out of roles in Jenner’s upcoming E! docu-series about her transformation after the same production company behind “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” was selected.
The kids feared the producers would focus too much on family dynamics, pitting them against former stepmom Kris Jenner and her high-profile daughters, including Kim Kardashian West, 34, and supermodel Kendall Jenner, 19.
At first, Jenner was upset about the kids’ choice to bow out, but she eventually accepted it, Bissinger wrote.
“I have made a lot of mistakes raising the four (oldest) Jenner kids,” she told Vanity Honest, referring to tough times with her gender dysphoria and two broken marriages. “[It was] very traumatic and there was a lot of turmoil in my life, and I wasn’t as accurate to my kids as I should have been.”
When her exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer debuted on ABC’s 20/20 back in April, Jenner held two break viewings: the first with Kris Jenner and their kids and the second with her four oldest.
Jenner said she was worried about public reaction to the sit-down interview but was grateful for the support that started flowing in after 16.9 million viewers tuned in.
“Was it tough to watch? Of course it was,” Jenner told Vanity Honest.
“I never plotting in a million years I would ever have to divulge such private, intimate feelings I’ve had all my life,” she said. “[But]I was also excited to get it off my chest. Frightened, but excited.”
ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.
ndillon@nydailynews.com
This access passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
