Usually your mom is in your corner, but Caitlyn Jenner’s 93-year-old mother Esther says she just can’t bring herself to watch her daughter’s latest reality drama.
She wasn’t a huge fan of her biggest show, either, admitting that she could never quite figure out why “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” was such a hit in the first place.
“I wasn’t fond of that program,” she told . “There was no plot, and why it was such a hit I’ll never know … and I guess it still is!”
To this day, Esther says she can’t bring herself to watch the show, and it’s in large part because of how she feels Kris Jenner treated Caitlyn before she transitioned. “She made him look like a milquetoast man,” Esther said. That’s fancy language for someone who is timid and weak.
Caitlyn, however, has never had those qualities in her mother’s eyes, nor in the eyes of most Americans. Besides being a gold-medal athlete, she made the decision to very publicly transition while part of the biggest reality ensemble cast on television.
And Esther is fully supportive of her daughter’s decision to do that, as well, saying that being transgender “is nothing she asked for, it’s a condition and it starts in the mother’s womb.”
It’s her strength and determination that won her Olympic gold, says Esther, and she took those same qualities with her onto the latest season of the British reality competition series “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!”
A sort of “Survivor”-lite for celebrities, the show has been a huge hit across the pond for years now and has often tapped big-name American stars to join its roster of British celebs. And with the show airing nightly on ITV, Caitlyn has had to face struggles both emotional and physical, like having her head in a helmet full of live snakes.
Yeah, the show gets pretty weird at times.
But it’s all too much for Esther, who describes it as “torture.” As she sees it, “We have a ‘Survivor’ here in the United States … I’ve skimmed over it, or seen previews and I decided that I don’t really care for that.”
“That’s not entertainment to me, to see somebody frightened,” Esther continued. “I think she could spend a lot more pleasant times on the golf course!”
It’s probably good that she hasn’t tuned in, as it might have been gut-wrenching to see Caitlyn break down in tears, as she did on the first night, wondering if she’d made a mistake by leaving her family to do this crazy thing.
In fact, Esther was so adamant in not knowing what Caitlyn might experience that she shut down the interviewer for trying to explain some of the show’s signature challenges.
“I don’t what you to say anything that’s going to frighten me or upset me, I’m better off not to know,” she said, grateful that the series doesn’t air in the U.S. “I don’t need to torture myself, if it’s frightening, I don’t want to know.”
Caitlyn Jenner is no stranger to the show, though, having competed in 2003 on the short-lived American version. “Caitlyn said you have time to reflect, you have time to look inside your mind, figure things out,” Esther said. “[S]he said there are a lot of benefits to that exercise, it’s one heck of an exercise!”
As for Esther, she’s simply going to sit by her phone and wait for it all to be over so she can talk to her daughter again. She says she talks to her daughter every day on the phone, and that’s the thing she’s missing the most right now.
“I’ll be glad to get her phone call when she’s finished,” Esther said. Until then, the less she knows the better.
Got a story or a tip for us? Email TooFab editors at [email protected].
View Photos
Instagram
Dream Kardashian Turns 3 — See How The Family Celebrated!