I Am Cait, the reality television series about former gold-medal Olympian Bruce Jenner’s transition into Caitlyn Jenner, will not return for a third season, Jenner revealed on social media Tuesday.
“After 2 amazing seasons of @IAmCait, it’s time for the next adventure,” Jenner wrote on Twitter. “Thank you E! & thank you to the best girlfriends I could ask for!”
The E! network — home to Keeping Up with the Kardashians, from which I Am Cait was spun off last year — released its own statement:
“We are incredibly proud of the two seasons of I Am Cait, a groundbreaking docu-series that sparked an important and unprecedented global conversation about transgender people, their struggles and triumphs. Caitlyn and E! have mutually decided not to move forward with another season at this time. She will always remain a part of the E! family, and we look forward to continue following her journey as she appears on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
I Am Cait premiered to a healthy 2.7 million viewers last summer, after Jenner’s transition into a woman and his subsequent now-famous cover of Vanity Fair sparked worldwide interest in the former Olympian’s gender transition.
But the show never reclaimed the ratings success of that first episode; the second episode drew 1.3 million viewers, or roughly half of the first episode’s viewership, and by the time the second season premiered, the program’s ratings had fallen off a cliff. Just 745,000 viewers tuned in to the second season premiere in March.
It also did not help that many activists in the transgender community heavily criticized both Jenner and the series for failing to accurately depict the struggles that everyday transgender people experience in their regular lives.
“Caitlyn Jenner is put on this pedestal… to become the authoritative voice on trans issues and that happened overnight. It wasn’t anything that she did to particularly earn that title. She wasn’t elected by the trans community,” transgender advocate Andre Perez told the Wrap in September.
E! will add another Kardashian-focused reality spinoff, Rob and Chyna, to its roster later this year. That program will center on Rob Kardashian’s relationship with his expectant fiancé Blac Chyna.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum