Kris Jenner is the matriarch of the Kardashian-Jenner family, but she was simply a wife and mother before becoming the most famous momager in Hollywood.
Jenner was born in San Diego to Robert Houghton and M.J. Houghton, in 1955. The entrepreneur met her first husband, attorney Robert Kardashian Sr., in the 1970s. The couple tied the knot in 1978.
“I married Robert when I was 22 years old and I got pregnant on my honeymoon,” she told OBJECTified in July 2018. “I had the happiest life you could’ve dreamt about. But when you’re in something, sometimes people think the grass is always greener and that was like what I think I went through at some point.”
Jenner and Kardashian went on to have four children together: Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian and Rob Kardashian. However, the pair divorced in March 1991 after Jenner had an affair. In March 2020, the momager admitted on Diane von Furstenberg‘s “InCharge With DVF” podcast that her “biggest regret was the fact that it broke up my family.”
“I didn’t know what to do. I had four kids, I was single. I didn’t know where I was going to live,” she explained. “I didn’t know how I was going to make a living. It was the scariest time to be that young. I think I was 32 years old, and I had four little children. My son was maybe a year old and it was scary. I was really, really scared. I remember picking myself up by my bootstraps one day. I have deep faith in God and I just started praying that God would strengthen me, give me that power, give me the ability to be in charge of my own life. It was my turn to really grow up.”
However, Jenner remained on good terms with Robert until his death in July 2003 from esophageal cancer.
Jenner was married to Olympian Caitlyn Jenner from 1991 until their split in 2013. The pair are the parents of daughters Kendall and Kylie Jenner.
The California native is the manager for all six of her children and even trademarked the term “momager” in 2017. The Kardashian-Jenner family became household names after the premiere of their E! reality series Keeping Up With the Kardashians in 2007. The show became a pop culture phenomenon and cemented Kris’ status as the ultimate boss lady.
“It’s annoying when I hear, ‘What do your girls do?’ Well, first of all, all of my daughters have jobs,” Kris told Redbook Magazine in 2011. “They are fashion stylists and designers; they own a chain of stores. They had the stores before they had the show. And my kids worked from the time they were 13 years old. So, to me, that’s a huge misconception that the girls don’t work. They work 25 hours a day.”
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Scroll down to see Kris’ evolving look throughout the years.
