Accumulating reports are suggesting Bruce Jenner is transitioning to female and plans to document the change for a TV docu-series later this year.
Stepdaughter Kim Kardashian provided a hint last week on Entertainment Tonight, while promoting her Super Bowl commercial for T-Mobile. She said Jenner is the happiest she's ever seen him.
"We support Bruce no matter what. ... On this one, I will say I think Bruce should tell his story his way. I think everyone goes through things in life, but I do think that story and what Bruce is going through, I think he'll share whenever the time is right," she said. "Bruce is very happy – the happiest I've ever seen him. He's, you know, our dad, so we support him. I think when the time's right, he'll talk about whatever he wants to talk about. I just feel like that's really his journey to talk about."
But it's still officially unconfirmed and hush-hush, and not just because it involves Jenner — ex-Olympic decathlete, father and stepfather to 10, husband to three ex-wives, world-famous reality star — slowly but surely becoming a woman.
It's hush-hush because, multiple reports say, he plans to film his transition for TV. No point in talking now and spoiling the show.
So Jenner isn't confirming and neither are his representatives. And neither is his network, NBCUniversal, which owns E! whereKeeping Up With the Kardashians has been a reality staple for years.
"We are not commenting," e-mailed Christel Wheeler, publicity spokeswoman for E! and NBCUniversal.
But it's anything but hush-hush in the celebrity tabloids, where Jenner's dramatic change in appearance (throat surgeryno Adam's apple, long hair, makeup, manicures) has been a topic of often lurid gossip and paparazzi photos for months.
InTouch magazine attracted fierce criticism two weeks ago when editors Photoshopped Jenner's lipsticked face onto the body of a woman for the cover, with the headline "My Life as a Woman."
But now the gossip has reached the respectable heights of such publications as People and The Wrap. But the sources are still all anonymous, so reader beware.
"People has confirmed that Bruce Jenner has been quietly making a very personal change. The former Olympian will soon be living life as female," the magazine reported over the weekend, quoting a "Jenner insider."
Jenner is happy about his self-discovery and wants to share it with viewers, but the sharing won't be until he's ready to be open,People said.
Meanwhile, the usually blabby Kardashian/Jenner clan is keeping its collective mouth mostly zipped in public, while letting it be known that they support Jenner even if they're still adjusting to the change.
When People contacted his oldest child, son Burt, 36, he said only that his father is "doing awesome."
If Jenner goes through with a transition and documents it, it would be one of the few examples of a celebrity sharing such an intimate change with the world.
Chaz Bono, born Chastity, daughter of Sonny & Cher, and one of the most famous transgendered celebs, shared his often painful struggle in a documentary, Becoming Chaz, which premiered on the Sundance Channel and then aired on Oprah's network, OWN, in 2011.
Transgender people have come a long way since they were viewed as freaks in the mid-20th-century when Christine Jorgensen became the first American woman widely famous for getting sex reassignment surgery in Denmark in 1951.
Now, the transgendered community is more mainstream people are becoming more familiar thanks, in part, to a presence on popular and acclaimed acclaimed TV series and movies such as , either as actors playing transgendered characters (Transparent, TransAmerica, Garp, ) or as transgender actors playing characters in their new gender (Orange is the New Blackand Glee, Boys Don't Cry, Dirty Sexy Money). Movies, as well. In 2000, Hilary Swank won the best-actress Oscar for her role as a young woman living as a man in Boys Don't Cry. In 2006, actress Felicity Huffman was nominated for an Oscar forTransamerica.
On Twitter, the reaction to Jenner's future plans is mixed, with some tweeters calling him "brave" and others calling him "weird."
