A New York Times reporter contacted Caitlyn Jenner about her cross-dressing habits in the mid-1980s - but the story never ran.
And
it has now been revealed that the publicist who helped shut that
article down more than a decade ago was behind Jenner's groundbreaking
20/20 interview special with Diane Sawyer in April.
Jenner
first reached out to Alan Nierob, an executive at Hollywood agency
Rogers & Cowan, when a New York Times reporter began asking her
questions about cross-dressing, Variety first reported.
The
Olympian confided in Nierob and told him about her gender dysphoria. It
was a secret the publicist would keep for thirty years, a fact Caitlyn
would remember when she was ready to share it with the world.
But Nierob's
strategy in the 1980s was to deny. With the help of Jenner's attorney
and manager at the time, he was able to put enough stress of the
publication to squash the story completely.
Meanwhile, Caitlyn still felt like she was living a lie.
'I'd
literally go up into the hotel room, change [into women's] clothes, and
walk around,' Jenner would tell Diane Sawyer almost 30 years later
about that period in her life.
Jenner began hormone therapy in the 1980s after her marriage ended with second wife Linda Thompson.
She began taking estrogen and underwent electrolysis to have her beard and chest hair removed.
Her boobs grew to a size 36B and she considered traveling to Denmark for gender-confirmation
surgery and coming back as her childrens' 'Aunt Heather', details she
revealed to Sawyer as the camera rolled for their tell-all interview. It was
Nierob who reached out to Sawyer last fall about interviewing Jenner, a
two-hour television special that would eventually be watched by 17
million people.
It was Nierob (pictured) who reached out to Sawyer last fall about interviewing Jenner
The
New York Times story did not come up, but Jenner did tell Sawyer about
the moment her third wife, Kris Kardashian, walked in while she was
wearing a dress.
During the interview
Jenner also told Sawyer there was a night where she contemplated
committing suicide with a gun she kept in the house, before realizing
she had to see 'how this story ends'.
Jenner
has since revealed in her Vanity Fair interview that she considered
ending her life after a different publication refused to hold back on a
story - unlike the New York Times had done so many years before.
In 2013
the gossip site TMZ called Jenner to ask questions about her alleged
tracheal shave operation, which reduces the appearance of an Adam's
apple.
Jenner
told Vanity Fair she begged the site not to publish anything because it
would 'destroy lives', according excerpts from the interview obtained
by Jezebel.
TMZ refused to back down and a day after the story ran, Jenner considered ending it all with a gun she kept in the house.
Fast-forward
two years later and now Caitlyn is taking control of her media
presence, appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair, racking up more than 2
million Twitter followers in a matter of days and starring in her own
reality show I Am Cait.
And at the helm of Caitlyn's campaign remains Nierob, who she officially hired last fall after he helped her out as a friend all those years ago.
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