— -- Even before Bruce Jenner became an Olympic champion, his first wife Chrystie Scott said, he told her early on during their marriage that he was struggling with being transgender and wanted to “be a woman.”
“It was such a shock to me, but he opened up his heart and confessed,” Scott said in an exclusive interview on “Good Morning America” Monday. “[He said] he had to share this deep, dark secret and he told me he always wanted to be a woman and, understandably, I was speechless. I didn’t really know what to say.”
Jenner and Scott were married in 1972, and she was by his side as he took home the gold medal for the decathlon at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Jenner was crowned an American hero during the Cold War, and afterwards, endorsement deals and appearance opportunities poured in. His likeness became a nationwide brand, and Jenner appeared in ads, movies and TV shows.
But it was during their first year of marriage, Scott said, that the former Olympian told her about his issues.
“I was really pleased that he shared that intimacy with me, that he trusted me with his deepest, darkest secret,” she said.
Bruce Jenner told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer during an exclusive interview, which aired in a special edition of “20/20” Friday, that Scott was probably “the first one to know” he was quietly struggling with gender identity. Jenner referred to himself using male pronouns during the interview and ABC News has chosen to follow his lead, though he also referred to himself as “Bruce” and “her.”
“I didn’t go heavily into it back then,” Jenner told Sawyer. “I said, ‘These are my issues. This is what I deal with.’ And they think I do a little cross dressing, I do a little of this, a little of that, you know, ‘It’s going to be fine; we’ll work all this stuff out.’”
Six years into their marriage, Jenner and Scott had their first child together, Burt. Scott was pregnant with their second child, Cassandra, when the couple separated. They divorced in 1981.
When asked if Jenner’s struggle with being transgender was what led to their divorce, Scott told “Good Morning America” that, “It was an underlying unrest and an underlying dissatisfaction of being married that led to our divorce.”
“His career as a decathlete was over,” she continued. “There were a lot of changes in his life that made him an unhappy guy right then, so that could have been a big factor. I don’t know. It wasn’t a thing that we explored because it didn’t seem like, it didn’t rear its ugly head.”
Scott said his issues were difficult for her to understand, at the time.
“It’s so hard to wrap your head around it, especially because he was such a manly man and he didn’t display any female style in any way,” she said. “He never indicated anything feminine in his demeanor. It was pretty hard to wrap my head around it, but it didn’t threaten me. It didn’t threaten our marriage. It wasn’t really a threat. It wasn’t a problem.”
Scott kept Jenner’s secret to herself for decades. She said she was very proud of Jenner for coming forward with his story and hopes he can serve as an inspiration to others.
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