Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage.comBruce Jenner is a man of many talents—and many children. On Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the Olympic gold medalist puts his home life on display, alongside wife Kris, daughters Kendall and Kylie, stepdaughters Khloe, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian and stepson Rob. One can’t help but wonder if the title of this popular reality show isn’t a direct reflection of a low-maintenance man’s effort to find sanity amidst the chaos of a high-maintenance life.
Slice.ca caught up with the one-time male pin-up and world famous athlete to find out more about what it’s really like inside the Jenner-Kardashian compound.
In Keeping Up With the Kardashians, you state quite plainly that you’re a pushover for your family. Were you initially against the idea of opening up your personal life to the public?
My life’s been an open book since [the 1976] Montreal [Olympics]. I’ve been doing television shows and all those types of things for a long time—and I saw this as being a show about all the things that happen in your family. So I thought, ‘Do I really want these things to get out? I don’t know…’ But then, this was all my wife’s idea anyway [laughs] – so I figured I can always blame her if everything goes wrong. I did like that it was an opportunity for the whole family to work together, though. We looked at all the positive things that can come out of a successful show, and we decided, as a family, ‘Let’s go for it.’
Your family is obviously well-suited to the reality show treatment.
You know, we look at all the other reality shows that take place in a family setting, and we have so many more things happening in our family. And I’m looking at what’s out there and I’m goin’, ‘Are you kidding me? I got that times ten.’ It was a little scary, especially because we didn’t know if the show would do well, but fortunately it’s worked extremely well. We’ve done two seasons, the third season’s done, and it’s been great for everybody that’s been involved.
Why do you think you’ve been able to draw such a large audience?
I think we’re very honest. We deal with a lot of things that people can identify with in their own families. Whether they have sisters or brothers—but especially if they have sisters—the fighting that goes on… You know, they love each other, but if something goes wrong, they can take each other’s heads off. And that’s like in any family. Any girl that has a sister knows what that’s like. A lot of people come to me and say they like the show because they like the way I deal with a lot of these things as a father, or in Kris’ case, as a mother. Over the years we’ve done some pretty sensitive stuff. All the way down to my littlest girls, as they start to become young women. Every family has to deal with that. And we never let a show end when everybody’s still mad. It always ends as a loving, tight family. No matter what drama you go through in your family, you’ve got to make up in the end.
The meat of the show, though, is edited to emphasize the scandalous stuff, for dramatic effect.
Yep.
And you strike me as a very positive person—
I am.
For the complete interview visit slice.ca.