Caitlyn Jenner is sharing her grief after the sudden death of her friend and manager, Sophia Hutchins.
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Hutchins died in an ATV accident near Jenner’s Malibu home on July 2. She collided with a moving vehicle, causing the ATV to go off the road and fall 350 feet into a ravine. She was only 29.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Eduardo Saucedo later told The Daily Mail that Hutchins “may have been speeding and rear-ended the other car, the other party, and then that caused her to veer to the right and go off the cliff.”
Now, nearly two months later, Jenner is opening up about how she’s dealing with Hutchins’ tragic death.
“Just recently, my good friend Sophia passed away in a tragic accident,” Jenner said Thursday on Fox News @ Night. “For the last seven weeks, I’ve been dealing with death, and it’s so difficult,” she added.
Jenner joined the broadcast to discuss the tragic mass shooting that occurred at a Minneapolis Catholic school on Wednesday. The incident claimed the lives of two children and left 17 others injured.
“Here I am dealing with my grief, and I just can’t even imagine parents who dropped their kid off at school and, like that father just said, ‘I’ll never get a chance to talk to him again,'” Jenner continued. She was referencing Jesse Merkel’s comments to CNN about his 8-year-old son, Fletcher, who was killed in the shooting.
“That is just so horrible,” an emotional Jenner continued. “I’ve been dealing with grief, and these people have a long road ahead of them, and they’re going to be dealing with grief also.”
“My prayers and blessings are with the victims,” she said toward the end of the interview.
Caitlyn Jenner Met Sophia Hutchins in 2015
Hutchins, who is also transgender, met Jenner through her makeup artist in 2015. She appeared in several episodes of Jenner’s docuseries I Am Cait, which documented Jenner’s life after her transition.
Jenner’s late friend attributed the gold medalist’s coming-out journey as the inspiration behind her decision to transition in 2016.
In 2017 and 2018, rumors circulated that Jenner was dating Hutchins, who is younger than Jenner’s daughter Kendall, 29.
“We were never romantically involved,” Hutchins told The New York Times in 2019.