Grand Central PublishingCaitlyn Jenner is not holding back.
After decades of hiding her authentic self, she has put pen to paper to document the progression of her life from a dyslexic young boy from Mount Kisco, New York, to an Olympic gold medalist to a reality star dad to a trans woman. In the process of the progression, Jenner has notably encountered an array of other famous people—including O.J. Simpson and, of course, the Kardashians.
Jenner seems to hold nothing back throughout the 320-page memoir, aptly titled The Secrets of My Life. Here are her most shocking secrets:
1. Caitlyn took her first wife Chrystie Crownover to McDonald's for their wedding dinner.
After their small wedding ceremony, they booked a suite at the Holiday Inn and, by 10 p.m., they hadn't eaten dinner. Room service was closed and every takeout place had a wait. "We went to McDonald's for an intimate wedding night supper," she described.
2. She set up a debit account under a secret name to buy women's clothing and wigs.
Wendy Roth, a coordinating producer for Good Morning America, has been a longtime friend to Jenner and they would often go shopping together to help disguise Caitlyn's feminine purchases. By 2013, she opened a debit account in Roth's name and put money into it so she could buy clothes online without Jenner's name being attached to the billing.
3. She banned O.J. Simpson's name in the house.
Jenner explained that she and Kris believed Simpson was guilty, but that Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian were "firm in the conviction that he hadn't done it because of their father's involvement." So, when the trial was over and Simpson was found not guilty, Jenner told the girls, "The name of O.J. Simpson will never be mentioned in this house again."
4. Las Vegas was Caitlyn's escape.
"As Bruce, I always liked going to Vegas, not for the gambling or the garishness but because it was the best place of all to dress up, the only locale where you could do whatever you wanted and no one would notice," she explained. She described pulling into parking lots to change into women's clothing and wigs for the drive to Vegas and then changing right before checking into her hotel. The first time she ever went out in public dressed as a woman was when she went to a Las Vegas Starbucks and ordered a drink. "God, that felt good," she remembered.
5. She contemplated suicide after a call from TMZ.
Before her interview with Diane Sawyer, Jenner got a call from TMZ's Harvey Levin, who told her they knew about her tracheal shave and suggested it was the beginning of her transition. In fear of what would happen if they published the story, Jenner said she kept thinking about the gun she owned. "You keep a gun in the house. Why not use it? Just get it over with," she recalled thinking to herself. Ultimately, she decided it would be "a terrible way to end my story." "Why give Havey and the tabloids the satisfaction?" she thought.
6. Her sons did not like the Vanity Fair cover.
"I know that Burt [Jenner] and Brandon [Jenner] and Brody [Jenner] did not like the Vanity Fair cover, not only because they thought it was too risqué, but because I did not gauge how a son would feel seeing his father in a cream-colored bustier."
7. The first time she heard Kris' name, she was salmon fishing.
In 1990, Jenner was shooting a segment for a television show with baseball player Steve Garvey and his wife Candace. During the shoot, Candace suggested Jenner date Kris, who was going through her divorce from Robert at the time. Caitlyn was immediately interested in the fact that they both had four kids and had been married before. Seven months later, they were married.
"Whatever the differences that developed between Kris and me later on…she saved me at this point in my life, just like sports had saved me as a young child," she wrote.
8. She claims she told Kris about her gender issues.
"I tell Kris about my gender issues before I make love to her," Jenner wrote. "This will always be a subject of dispute between Kris and me as to how much she could intuit about my gender issues. She insists that she was taken by surprise by my ultimate transition to Caitlyn…I told her I dressed as a woman, and she knew I did, because I did it several times in front of her after we were married."
However, both Kris and Kim have called Caitlyn's claims into question. During a recent episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kris told Kim and Khloe Kardashian, "everything she said is all made up."
"Why does everything have to be that Kris is such a bitch and an a--hole?" she said in the episode. "All through the book—Kris knew. Kris knew before I even made love to her. I'm like, 'What?'"
"I've never been so angry and disappointed in somebody in my whole life. I'm done," she concluded.
Meanwhile, during a recent sit down with Andy Cohen for a Town Hall special on Sirius XM's Radio Andy, Jenner also told Cohen that Khloe hasn't spoken to her in two years—a statement that seems exaggerated. During another episode of KUWTK, they spoke briefly at Kendall Jenner's 21st birthday party in November 2016.
As this family drama plays out in the public spotlight, Kim is defending her mother.
"My heart breaks for my mom, because I feel like she's been through so much...[Caitlyn's] promoting this book and she's saying all these things and you know, I just don't think it's necessary," she told Ellen DeGeneres. "I just feel like it's unfair; things aren't truthful."
—Additional reporting by Jamie Bland