Caitlyn Jenner: Inside Her Relationship With the Jenners and Kardashians

How the Vanity Fair article explains her past and hopeful future.

ByABC News
June 2, 2015, 4:27 PM

— -- For years, Bruce Jenner lived life in front of reality TV cameras. However, the person now known as Caitlyn Jenner says she never was being her true self.

Finally, Caitlyn Jenner introduced herself on the cover of Vanity Fair Monday, and the article, written by Buzz Bissinger, made public parts of her life that, in spite of her then-public persona, remained unknown.

In the story, Bissinger lays out Caitlyn Jenner's relationships with the former Bruce Jenner's third wife, Kris Jenner, the Kardashian empire, and "the Jenner side," Jenner's four children from previous marriages -- Burt Jenner, 36, Cassandra "Casey" Marino, 34, Brandon Jenner, 33, and Brody Jenner, 31.

Both Caitlyn Jenner, 65, and Kris Jenner, 59, disagree on how much Bruce Jenner revealed of his identity issues while the two were married for 23 years. Caitlyn Jenner has said she made it clear she had taken hormones in the late 1980s, while Kris Jenner has said "he never really explained it. ... Nobody mentioned a gender issue. Somebody mentioned that [he] at one point in his life liked to dress up."

Kris Jenner has said there was an attempt to merge the Jenner and Kardashian children when the two got together in the early 1990s, but it got "to a point where it became exhausting to be embattled all the time."

The Jenner kids apparently believe the new family turned on them, according to the Vanity Fair article.

"I think the nail in the coffin for the relationship was the beginning of the TV show," Burt Jenner said of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," which first aired in 2007.

Caitlyn Jenner seems to agree about the show, and adds that it may have changed her relationship with Kris Jenner.

"The first 15 years I felt she needed me more," Jenner said. "Then ... she was running this whole show and getting credit for it and she had her own money, she didn't need me as much. ... I think in a lot of ways she became less tolerant of me. ... People would see how I got mistreated. She controlled the money."

Kris Jenner has a different take.

"He was married to me and he wasn't who he wanted to be so he was miserable," she said, adding her ex had a lot of anxiety in the spotlight, always wanting to be at home.

She also called Caitlyn's lack of explanation about the transition until after the divorce, "the most passive-aggressive thing I think I've ever experienced."

But Caitlyn Jenner says of the split, "Twenty percent was gender and 80 percent was the way I was treated."

In similar sentiments shared during the Diane Sawyer interview, which aired in early May, Jenner admitted that, as Bruce, he largely abandoned his four previous children prior to having Kendall, 19, and Kylie, 17, with Kris Jenner. Jenner missed birthdays and did not attend graduations. He even missed the birth of his daughter, Casey, because of issues he was having with her mother.

"There's no way to separate what he's going through, the trap he's been in for the past 60 years and how that has affected his choices around love and relationships," added Casey Marino. "It's impossible."

Marino added that in the late 1980s, she finally saw glimpses of Caitlyn, a happier person becoming her true self, and that, "I would happily have traded a distant father for a loving, involved mom."

When Caitlyn Jenner finally told the Jenner side of the transition, Brandon Jenner said, "I've never been more proud of you than I am at this moment."

"This is the fourth quarter of [her] life. But within our relationship this is the first quarter," he added. "I envision the fourth quarter as having a 15- or 16-year-old daughter who knows her grandparent as 'Mapa' or whatever Dad wants to be, and loves that grandparent for who she is."