Bruce Jenner during his tell-all interview with Diane Sawyer. Photo/YouTube
Bruce Jenner during his tell-all interview with Diane Sawyer. Photo/YouTube
The Kardashian family have had hundreds of intense, emotional meetings to deal with Bruce Jenner's decision to transition into a woman, Kim Kardashian has revealed.
The reality star told how she, her sisters and her mother Kris Jenner would open their hearts to each other to process the emotional turmoil prompted by the 65-year-old former Olympian's decision to consider himself a woman.
She also admitted that the issues of being transgender are "not something ... I can fully understand" but added that understanding wasn't necessary for her to "support him 100 per cent".
A portion of the interview, with NBC's Today show, which was released over the weekend had already revealed that the whole Kardashian clan is also in therapy to help them deal with the change.
Giving a window inside the family heart-to-hearts, she said: 'There is every emotion you could possibly imagine. There is [sic] hundreds of family meetings, we still have them.
"Say what you want about us, but we work out everything as a family, we have the best communication and we are so in sync with each other.
"I love having so many siblings and such a supportive mum because each family member might be dealing with this in a different way but we have each other to go through this experience with, and I'm really grateful for that."
Despite the emotional hardship, Kardashian celebrated Jenner's decision, which she says has brought him "peace".
She said: "He's living his life the way he wants to live it. And that he has found inner peace and just pure happiness - that's what life is about.
"I don't know what life would be like if you always felt like you weren't yourself.
"And I know it's not something that you or I can really fully understand, but I don't even think we have to.
"I think as long as he is happy and he wants to live his life however he wants to live it - that just makes me happy and I support him 100 per cent."
In the interview Kim admitted that it was a "hard adjustment" for her family, but said they have remained united, despite reports to the contrary in the media.
"I think there is still an adjustment and there's family therapy, and we're really close. I see reports that say, 'This one doesn't support him' and, 'This one's over here' and my mum feels this way, and it's all really so made up - we all really support him.
'Is it a hard adjustment? Yes. Is [sic] there things that we have learned more recently? It's an adjustment with how to deal with it and it's a daily process."
When asked for an example of how it affected daily Kardashian life, she said the family had spoken to LGBT groups to learn how to refer to Jenner properly.
She said: "We have been talking to people from the Glaad organisation and just different organisations on ... [for instance] what do we call him? Do we say him or her? How do we be respectful? There's so many things that you just want to be supportive and just want to be respectful and I think that everything takes time.
"Bruce wants us to feel as comfortable as possible and take everything at our own pace and we love him for that and we respect him for that.
"You know, until that transition is done we've learned that you do refer to him as him. But Bruce has always been really really good at explaining everything to us - even though it's really new and these have been newer feelings.
"Not newer feelings for him, not newer feelings for him, but newer feelings for us to digest. He's done a really good job of walking us through it."
When fears were voiced that the inevitable tide of publicity Jenner will now face could overwhelm him, Kardashian insisted that he is "finally ready".
She said: "I think he is prepared for it. I think that he has waited almost 65 years to make this decision, whether he's kept it to himself or not. He's lived with it.
"I think when you are finally ready to be your true self then you're prepared for anything."
She returned to the topic later, adding: "I think he is ready for the challenge and ready to help other people's lives that might be going through the same things that he's going through.
"And that's something that he's really proud of and really ready to take on - and I'm really proud of him for that."
Bruce Jenner during his interview with Diane Sawyer. Photo/YouTube
In his original, bombshell interview Jenner, who prefers to be referred to as "he" for now, revealed that Kim was one of the first to find out his desire to become a woman after catching the former Olympian in a dress.
The segment, filmed months ago, followed intense speculation and was aired after a slew of photographs seemingly showed him in the midst of his transition.
In front of the cameras Jenner let his hair down - literally loosening a ponytail and letting his hair flow past his shoulders - in a symbolic moment at the start of his two-hour tell-all that was televised Friday.
He said: "Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am a woman."
"My whole life has been getting me ready for this," said Jenner, 65, known to a younger generation as the patriarch of television's omnipresent Kardashian clan.
"It's not just the last few years as they've been treating me as a joke."
The interview was filmed in February in Los Angeles and New York, before a fatal car accident in which Jenner was involved.
Jenner said he self-identifies as 'her,' rather than a specific name.
Jenner said his 'brain is more female than it is male.' He said he began gender reassignment therapy in the 1980s - taking hormones, having surgery to make his nose smaller and having hair removed from his face and chest - but gave it up.
As Jenner got older, he realised that if he got sick and faced death without facing up to this issue, "I'd be so mad that I didn't explore that side of my life".
As a young boy, Jenner felt an urge to try on his mother's and sister's dresses.
"I didn't know why I was doing it," he said. "It just made me feel good."
Jenner said he has never been sexually attracted to men, and he wanted to make clear to viewers that gender identity and sexuality were separate things.
"I am not gay," he said. "I am, as far as I know, heterosexual. I've always been with a woman, raising kids."
Jenner said he has not decided whether he will undergo sexual reassignment surgery.
"These are all things that are out there in the future for me to explore," he said. "There's no rush for that. And I would do it so quietly that nobody in the world would know."
Jenner's first two wives offered messages of support; ABC said Kris Jenner's publicist called to specifically say his third wife would have no comment.
But Jenner tweeted that no one had asked for comment and, after the interview aired, tweeted: "Not only was I able to call him my husband for 25 years and father of my children, I am now able to call him my hero."
