Sophia Hutchins: ‘It’s gut-wrenching to watch Caitlyn Jenner break down on I’m A Celeb’

Caitlyn Jenner’s partner Sophia Hutchins says it has been "gut-wrenching" to watch the star break down on ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!’
Caitlyn, 70, is currently competing in the ITV show and Sophia, 23 – who works as the Executive Director of the Caitlyn Jenner Foundation and lives with the star in Malibu – admitted that not being able to comfort Caitlyn when she started crying was heartbreaking.
Speaking on ITV’s ‘Lorraine’ on Wednesday (20.11.19), Sophia said: "When I saw her crying the first night, I was just in shock. Everyone that knows her who I’ve spoken with was sending me these messages saying, ‘Is she ok, this isn’t the Caitlyn we know?’ The Caitlyn we know is super excited, super positive, super energetic, rarely sheds a tear. So we were all freaked out by that.
"It hasn’t been easy to watch at all. When someone is across the globe, you kind of feel helpless to begin with and when you throw in all of these challenges and you see her crying it’s just been gut-wrenching to watch.
"I’m watching it with all of you. The producers of the show take away everyone’s phones and we don’t have any way of communication which is really interesting and difficult to deal with. It’s pretty tough and hard to watch."
Although Caitlyn previously competed on the US version of the show in 2003, Sophia thinks the UK programme is more difficult.
She said: "I want to call the producers and say no more snakes and no more bugs! But we knew what she was signing up for. They reached out early this year and Caitlyn had done it before back in 2003 I think, early 2000s, so she felt like she kind of knew what she was signing up for. So, I just kind of went with it. But I think the British version of this show is a lot harder than the US version. At least a lot more challenging for Caitlyn, maybe it’s because it’s been 15 years but I think there are just more challenges to it."
However, Sophia is excited about Caitlyn competing on the show and believes it is a great opportunity for her to represent the LGBT community.
She explained: "I think that Caitlyn represents so many different things to people based on how old they are. So Caitlyn, or Bruce Jenner, represents that sporting career, that amazing athlete to one generation of people. Then there is another generation of people who remembers her as the dad, the parent of her successful, wildly famous children … on a show like this she can showcase all of her massive talents and she can have this massive fanbase that she’s established over the decades to represent this new voice which is her representing the LGBT community on this big show. I think that’s really exciting."
Watch ‘Lorraine’ on ITV weekdays from 8:30am to 9:25am.