Three years before Caitlyn Jenner made her debut, her stepson was a part of a powerful moment all on his own. A video from the 2012 Miss USA pageant resurfaced on Thursday, June 4, of Rob Kardashian asking contestant Olivia Culpo a question about transgender women.
“Would you feel it would be fair that a transgender woman wins the Miss USA title over a natural-born woman?” Kardashian, 28, asked the Rhode Island native at the time.
“I do think that that would be fair,” Culpo, 23, replied. “But I can understand that people would be a little apprehensive to take that road because there is a tradition of natural-born women, but today where there’s so many surgeries and so many people out there who have a need to change for a happier life, I do accept that, because I believe it’s a free country.”
Culpo, who began dating Nick Jonas months later, received loud cheers from the audience after her response. She went on to win both the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants that year.
Kardashian and Culpo’s exchange has come to light once more just days after Jenner, 65, revealed her transition from male to female on the cover of Vanity Fair’s July 2015 issue. Jenner’s stepson, as well as the rest of the Kardashian-Jenner brood, have embraced the athlete’s new chapter.
“You have always been a role model to me and now more than ever, I look up to you,” the sock designer tweeted to Jenner following her historic 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer on April 25. “LOVE YOU.”
Watch the video above.
