Caitlyn Jenner’s Olympic gold medal or her role as a parent and stepparent to the well-known Kardashian-Jenner clan may be her most famous accomplishments.
For Jenner’s other biological children, though, is linked with the first family of reality tv had a cost.
The second-oldest son of Caitlyn Jenner, Brandon Jenner, released a book titled “To Me, He Was Just Dad: Stories of Growing Up with Famous Fathers” in 2020 about his difficult connection with his father as a child.
For the purposes of this piece, we shall refer to Caitlyn Jenner as “dad” or “their father” despite though she is a trans woman because that is how her children still address her.
According to several sources, 41-year-old Brandon claims that his time with Caitlyn never felt sincere – that his time with her never felt so real.
Brandon Jenner has accused Caitlyn Jenner of being an absent parent.
“I didn’t see my father more than half a dozen times between the ages eight and twenty-five,” Brandon writes.
He discusses his hard childhood with his father and claims that Caitlyn gave Brandon a $250 bike, which he was responsible to pay back.
He wasn’t even eight.
A few weeks later, Caitlyn picked up an apricot from a tree and offered Brandon the chance to pay back the bike’s purchase price in half if he could hit a tree 60 feet away.
“Perhaps he was (proud), but all he said was, ‘Now you just owe me one hundred twenty-five dollars.’ I was eight and had no idea how I’d make the money,” he recalls.
Although Caitlyn was less enthusiastic, Brandon was proud that he hit the ball dead center.
Brandon claims in his book that everything changed once Caitlyn wed Kris Jenner in 1991.
He mentions how he has never enjoyed being around the Kardashian family.
That although he has a strong bond with sisters Kendall and Kylie, he admitted it was never his thing to be there.
“After Dad met and married Kris, the family became a business for him, and I stayed away for most of my teenage years,” he says. “I didn’t want to be a part of their dynamic.”
“Sadly, the infrequent exchanges felt more like staged photo opportunities than real bonding,” he writes to which he later adds that they were photo ops for Christmas cards.
Brandon also says that his father never felt happy in the household, saying, “I know now, though, that Dad was pretty unhappy in that house and felt like he wasn’t treated well.”
Brandon noted how their relationship improved following Caitlyn’s transition in 2015.
When asked why he thought his mother would have been happier if she had transitioned sooner rather than later, Brandon replied, “I think we could have built a stronger relationship earlier.”
Brody Jenner, Caitlyn’s other son, was likewise open about his relationship with his father.
In a 2019 episode of “The Hills,” Brody Jenner also addressed his relationship with his mother, according to Page Six.
“Bruce was just never really around,” Brody said.
“Every so often, maybe once every couple of years. He wasn’t around for my graduation. He wasn’t around for most of my birthdays. So, yeah, there really wasn’t any relationship. It was very surface,” he continued. “Eventually, we started to become closer. And then, all of a sudden, it was like… I was just getting to know Bruce, and then Bruce became Caitlyn.”
Brandon also echoed the same thing about growing up without his father, saying, “I didn’t really, you know? When I was really little, we got to spend a little bit of time.”
“When he started, you know, obviously with the family, the Kardashian family, and all of that, I didn’t really see much of him,” he said.
While Brody did not have the same revelation that Brandon did now that he and Caitlyn are close again, he does support the transition his father made.
“Caitlyn is a totally different person than Bruce,” he said. “It’s her true self, but Bruce was always holding a lot back and being somebody totally different.”