Four years into her marriage to Bruce Jenner, Linda Thompson’s husband told her he had something very important to reveal.
In 1985, Jenner–who now goes by Caitlyn–told Thompson he identified as female, and was transgender. She didn’t see the revelation coming.
“People ask me ‘were there any signs?,'” Thompson tells Steve Fast. “No. Absolutely nothing.”
The couple went into couples therapy in an attempt to reconcile Jenner’s gender dysphoria with their marriage. The therapy helped Thompson understand her husband’s gender identification, but the marriage was altered and they divorced.
“I kept Bruce’s secret for all those years and I had to wait until Caitlyn emerged [to talk about it],” Thompson says. “I know it’s a very difficult thing to understand but I don’t think we necessarily need to understand someone’s plight or someone’s life in order to accept it.”
In her memoir “A Little Thing Called Life,” Thompson writes about how then-husband Jenner revealed his transgender identity to his wife years before coming out publicly.
Actress and songwriter Linda Thompson chatted on The Steve Fast Show about her marriage to Bruce Jenner, her romance with Elvis Presley, and life in and out of the public eye.
Listen to the interview: Linda Thompson on The Steve Fast Show
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