I’ve lived enough and survived enough to freely speak my mind.
And it’s liberating anticipating the reactions that I find:
My mother is aghast, my husband is bemused,
My friends in far-right places, well,
They’re not all amused.
My children think I’m crazy, and I tell them that’s just fine
’Cause if I have to lose something,
I’d prefer to lose my mind.
—“ESTROGEN BLUES” BY KATHIE LEE GIFFORD FROM THE MUSICAL HATS
Kris Jenner and I have been friends since the late 1970s when I moved to LA to pursue my career. To say we have been through thick and thin together doesn’t come close to expressing the depth of it. I met her when she was married to her first husband, Robert Kardashian, and had very young children. We studied the Bible together, and then, as is often the case, lost touch in 1982 when I moved to New York to do Good Morning America.
We reconnected when Frank and I were at Ethel Kennedy’s home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, for a Robert F. Kennedy celebrity tennis tournament. Bruce Jenner was a guest as well. Frank and I had both befriended him as colleagues through Good Morning America. He was elated when we ran into him at Ethel’s. I asked him what was going on.
“I’ve met the most amazing woman,” he gushed.
“I’m so happy for you,” I said. “Do I know her?”
“No, she isn’t in the business, thank God,” he answered. “Her name is Kris Kardashian.”
“I love her!” I shouted. “We used to be great friends. We’ve just lost touch.”
The rest, of course, is a story that the world knows all too well. Bruce and Kris got married and had two more children—daughters Kendall and Kylie. Frank and I were asked to be their godparents, and we joyfully agreed.
What very few people know is that at that time, the family was in difficult financial straits. Kris was managing Bruce’s career, but he was no longer the super sports hero du jour and wasn’t pulling in the lucrative endorsement or appearance money he once had. As they say, fame is fleeting. I kept praying with Kris as they struggled, moving from one rental home to another in order to survive.
I sent my two goddaughters a darling Amish-made playhouse. It was just like the one I had purchased for Cassidy at our house. I included all the precious furniture and accessories for it, hoping it would bring the girls the same pleasure it had brought to Cass. They loved it.
Then one day I was talking to my new agent at the William Morris Agency. She once again wanted me to consider doing a reality series—something I had resisted for years.
“No,” I told her for the umpteenth time. “But you should do one with Kris and Bruce Jenner. That would be just unbelievable.”
It was true. Life in the Jenner home was a perpetual funny, crazy roller coaster of a ride. A circus. In one door, the Giffords, and out another door, the Jackson family, Wayne Gretzky, Scott Hamilton, O. J. Simpson—you name them. They were all a part of the Jenners’ everyday lives.
“No!” she answered me, very strongly. “I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. But I do represent Ryan Seacrest, and I think he’d be interested.”
Soon after, the world as we knew it came to an end.
Keeping Up with the Kardashians premiered in October 2007 and began a worldwide, frenzied phenomenon that continues to this day. I remember when the first episode premiered. I was nervous because I knew all too well how producers will manipulate anything they can to heighten the tension, increase the drama, and ensure they get a hit.
“Kris,” I warned my friend, “I know you’re excited about this, but please make sure you insist on some creative control. Make sure they represent you accurately. Make sure they show you saying grace over the food and going to church. It’s important.”
“Oh, I will,” she assured me. “I’m one of the executive producers.”
“Good,” I told her. “You go, girlfriend.”
Cassidy and her godmother, Christine (aka Chrissie, my right and left hand), and I waited at her house for the premiere. We had intentionally gone there to avoid Frank watching it with us at home. I somehow knew he would hate it. The show began and the three of us sat there speechless with the rest of the world. Finally, when it was over, I asked Cassidy, who was fourteen at the time, “What did you think, honey?”
“But, Mom,” she answered, confused, “they’re not like that.”
Kris waited to hear from me. She wanted to know what I had thought. But I hesitated to call her, as I always do when I’m not sure how to say what I know I need to say. This was a family I dearly loved. This was a friend I prayed with about everything. Now her family was on the verge of the kind of fame that was truly going to change everything. I was happy for her and terrified for her at the same time. Finally, I called.
Everyone knows what happened after that. But through it all, my friendship with Kris and my love for her family remained steadfast. If you are my friend, you are my friend forever. People ask me all the time if I had any knowledge of Bruce Jenner’s decision about his gender during that time. No, I didn’t. Bruce and Frank were very close. There were very few men that Frank considered his peers, but Bruce was one of them. Frank wasn’t arrogant about his fame and his accomplishments, but very few men had ever achieved his level of success in one of the most difficult arenas in the world—sports.
Frank admired Bruce enormously. He had covered the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal where Bruce stunned the world when he won the gold medal in the decathlon, basically crowning him the greatest athlete in the world. And Frank liked Bruce as a person. Bruce was affable and fun. He was also dyslexic. Frank could relate because, as a young man, he had stuttered. So, Frank mentored Bruce in the television world, just as he mentored me. He taught him about the ins and outs of professional sportscasting, and he took great pride as he watched Bruce navigate the treacherous new waters of being in front of the camera.
Frank was as stunned and taken by surprise as the rest of the world when Bruce identified as a woman and announced that he wanted to change his gender.
“Well, I’ll be,” is all I remember him saying. “I never saw that coming.”
By that time Bruce and Kris had divorced and were living separate lives. Several days before the infamous interview with Diane Sawyer was scheduled to air, Bruce called me. I was happy to hear his familiar, distinctive voice.
“Kathie,” he said after we exchanged pleasantries, “do you hate me?”
“Hate you?” I exclaimed, “Of course not, Bruce. I could never hate you. I love you.”
“But your faith . . .” he started.
I prayed silently that God would give me the grace to speak words of hope and life to my sweet friend.
“Bruce, God created you. You may believe He made a mistake with you, but God doesn’t make mistakes. We do.”
He was silent on the other end of the line.
“Sweetie, He knows you. He sees you. He loves you.”
My heart beat heavily in my chest.
“Whatever you do to your body—whatever changes you make—you can never change the masterpiece you are that He created. He created you in His image. And when you die, as we all will, that body will decay. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But the eternal part of you—your soul—will go on forever. And He will make you perfect. That is the hope of eternal life in Him.”
I could sense him taking this in, processing the enormity and wonder and miracle of it.
“Thank you, Kath,” he simply said.
“Are you going to change your name?” I asked. By now my heart was broken because his was.
“Yes,” he said, “to Caitlyn.”
“It’s a beautiful name,” I said. And it is. “I love you, Caitlyn.”
She called me just once again, soon after. And we tried to get together in New York City, but our schedules were crazy because life is crazy. It changes every nanosecond. But God doesn’t. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He loves us. His heart breaks for us. But He never gives up on us. It’s never too late to tell your friends that God loves them.
I recently attended Kanye West’s Sunday Service in Burbank. I had first heard of the now world-renowned rapper years before when he had one of his first hits, a song called “Jesus Walks.” People kept asking me if I’d heard that I’d been mentioned in this great new song by Kanye West. The lyrics went: “The way Kathie Lee needed Regis, that’s the way I need Jesus.”
I still haven’t heard the song. But the whole world has now heard of Kanye.
I was looking forward to personally experiencing what many friends I respected had assured me was a truly genuine faith-filled expression of God’s redeeming love. My longtime friend Lesley Burbridge had just taken the position of press agent for Kanye, so she picked me up early Sunday morning at my hotel to take me to the service. I had called Kris Jenner the day before in the hopes that she would be attending and was thrilled when she told me, “I will be now!”
After Kanye’s extraordinary service, I got in the car with his wife, Kim Kardashian, and her absolutely gorgeous children to travel north on the Ventura Freeway to join the whole Kardashian family at Kylie’s house in Hidden Hills.
Kylie Jenner was by now the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, featured on the cover of Forbes magazine. And she was having a launch party for her new line of children’s products named after her daughter, Stormi.
I hadn’t seen Kim in a long time. She seemed extra tiny next to me, holding her newest child, Psalm. The radio was on low, but the driver turned up the volume when he heard a reporter give an update about potential traffic problems ahead due to a helicopter accident in the area. I remember silently praying for whomever was on that helicopter while Kim continued to tell us about all she was doing to become a lawyer so she could free people from incarceration in our antiquated prison system. My heart swelled with pride for her.
“You’re doing the work Jesus called us to do, Kim,” I told her. “Set the prisoners free.”
This gorgeous woman, now a mother of four, nodded her head. “I know,” she said.
“And everything you’ve been through has brought you to this moment. No one would care if you weren’t Kim Kardashian. Every one of the people you’ve worked to release, and every one of their stories, would be ignored if it weren’t for all that you’ve been through.” Then I quoted from Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” (RGT).
Her beautiful, soulful eyes filled with tears.
“I know,” she said as we pulled up in front of Kylie’s house.
I hadn’t seen Kylie since the premiere of Cassidy’s 2015 movie, The Gallows. And I hadn’t met Stormi yet, so I was excited to hug them both and reconnect when the news hit: Kobe Bryant and his thirteen-year-old daughter had perished in that helicopter crash we had just heard about on the radio.
Instantly the atmosphere changed. Everyone huddled with their phones for more news. Kobe and Vanessa and their four beautiful children were good friends of the Kardashian/Jenner family. They’d recently spent New Year’s Eve together.
Everyone tried, in their own way, to make sense of the senseless. We prayed for Vanessa and her now three children. We prayed for the other families who lost loved ones as the details of the crash began to emerge. I had no idea how many hours had passed when Kris got up and suddenly said, “Come here, Kathie. I want to show you something in the backyard.”
I dutifully followed her into Kylie’s immaculate, fairy-filled backyard. Kris led me to a delightful little house nestled among the trees.
“Remember, Kath?” she said with a smile. “This is the playhouse you had made for Kendall and Kylie when they were little girls. I had it refurbished when Stormi was born.”
I was stunned. It was beyond beautiful.
“But look,” she continued, opening the little door, “I kept all the original furniture and the little stove and the little refrigerator and all the dishes, pots, and pans.”
I could hear our Savior speaking to me, drawing on the wisdom in Isaiah 43:19: “Behold, I make all things new, Kathie! Do you not perceive it?”
A few moments later Kylie found me. She was holding a tiny charm bracelet.
“You gave me this, right?” she asked as I focused on the little Tiffany treasure. “I’m saving it now for Stormi.”
To which Kendall—all five-feet-ten-perfect-model inches of her—responded, “And I look at the picture of you and me every morning next to my sink in my bathroom.”
As I sat in the car on my way back to my hotel, I marveled once again at the faithfulness of God and His unfailing love. I have been criticized for years for my continued association with this family, but I couldn’t care less what people think. The Word of God says that the world will know we are Christians by our love for one another (John 13:35).
I received so much criticism from Christians early in my career, basically asking me, “How can you call yourself a Christian and be in show business?”
To which I always replied, “How can I be in show business and not be a Christian?” There is simply no way I could have survived the constant rejection and brutality—both psychological and physical at times—that are part and parcel with show business. I knew God had called me to this business. He knew His plans for me in my mother’s womb. He saw me being formed. And He saw all the millions of people who would eventually hear about Jesus because He placed a boldness in me to proclaim His truth to the masses.
There is no doubt in my mind or in my spirit that Kanye loves Jesus with all his heart. I know a lot of people think he started a cult, but I stood for ninety minutes at his Sunday service and there was not one word—either spoken or sung—that did not proclaim anything but the worship of Jesus, the Messiah. Every church should be such a cult!
And I can see God moving in the hearts of each and every member of the Kardashian/Jenner clan. No one has the right to judge another person. Besides, the same judgment we declare over others will be declared over we who do the judging (Matt. 7:1–2). We need to remind ourselves every day that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
All means all—you and I and everyone else on the planet. God desires that we love one another and leave the judging to the only One who ever lived a perfect life, which He willingly gave up that we might have life and life abundant (John 10:10).
After all, “We love Him because He loved us first” (1 John 4:19 RGT).