Preconceived notions. Caitlyn Jenner’s son Brandon Jenner admits he struggles to be taken seriously in the music industry on occasion due to his famous last name.
“Things have changed for me a lot,” the reality star, 38, admitted during a Friday, June 28, episode of Channel Q radio’s “Let’s Go There With Shira & Ryan.” He added: “Just the rise of Keeping Up With the Kardashians has changed the idea of what the last name Jenner, you know, what kind of person I’m going to be.”
His surname wasn’t always a point of contention: He explained that the Olympian’s last name had a different connotation while growing up. “When I was a kid, I would hand my driver’s license, or my ID, when I was younger, and somebody would look at it and say, ‘Oh, are you Bruce Jenner’s kid?’ and they would want to shake my hand … It was this real sense of pride,” he said.
Now, as a musician, however, he struggles with his family’s fame. “When people hear it for the first time, or they hear my last name, ‘Jenner,’ I think that they’re quicker to write me off and not necessarily even want to give my music a chance because of it,” he shared. “I sometimes am almost a little ashamed of it, because I feel like people are going to have this preconceived notion that I’m just, kind of, like a spoiled kid that doesn’t really have anything to say, right? And hasn’t struggled in their life.”
Brandon continued on to say that for him, the most inspiring musicians and the songwriters are those that have faced “some sort of struggle in their life.”
“I’ve struggled just like a lot of other people in different ways, on an emotional level,” he concluded.
Brandon’s relationship with Caitlyn, 69, for example, hasn’t always been easy. The former athlete confessed in her 2017 memoir, The Secrets of My Life, that she wasn’t always present in her four eldest children’s lives. (Caitlyn is also the parent of Burt, 40, Cassandra, 39, Brody, 35, and Kendall, 23, and Kylie Jenner, 21, whom she shares with ex-wife Kris Jenner.)
Caitlyn spoke about her children after coming out as transgender to Diane Sawyer in April 2015. “Some [of my children] I have remained very close to,” she said at the time. “A couple of them … I’m a little more distant. I have to admit, I’ll sit here and wonder, ‘Is it because of my transitioning?’ Or is it because their life is so busy that they don’t call, like, all the time?’”
The former Olympian and Brandon have since patched things up: He spent Thanksgiving with the I Am Cait star and his estranged wife, Leah Jenner, in November.
Caitlyn also gave a sweet nod to her son with her recent Father’s Day Instagram post in June, writing, “To all the dads in my life – happy Father’s Day! Starting with my father, a World War Two veteran. Dad, Burt, Brandon, Kanye, Rob, Scott, and Travis – Happy Father’s Day!”
