Last night (South African time) Bruce Jenner, or should we say Caitlyn Jenner, broke the internet. Caitlyn (with a ‘C’ and not a ‘K’) did what Kim Kardashian tried to do with Paper magazine, and my goodness, the results are astounding.

Ladies and gents, without further ado, the much anticipated Jenner transformation:

And so as not to make her entrance lightly, Caitlyn had Annie Leibovitz  shoot the photos. For the cover of Vanity Fair’s July issue. Obviously. Come on, you know that when the Kardashian-Jenners do something big, they do it right. Speaking about the shoot, Jenner explained how emotional and important it was.

That was a good day, but the last couple of days were better. . . . This shoot was about my life and who I am as a person. It’s not about the fanfare, it’s not about people cheering in the stadium, it’s not about going down the street and everybody giving you ‘that a boy, Bruce,’ pat on the back, O.K. This is about your life.

She also tells of how she had a panic attack after undergoing 10-hour facial surgery, thinking to herself “What did I just do? What did I just do to myself?”

Khloe Kardashian has shown massive support of Jenner’s transformation, and last night tweeted “We were given this life because you were strong enough to live it! I couldn’t be prouder!!! Caitlyn, You are beautiful!!!”.

David Caplan (who manages to collect celebrity news for TMZ and People) got some amazing behind the scenes images from the cover shoot.

HOW VANITY FAIR KEPT IT SECRET

With Jenner’s revelation being called one of the “biggest cultural stories of the year”, how, exactly, did Vanity Fair keep all the news under wraps for so long? Well, the cover is the result of “months of negotiations and work” which needed “beefed up security to keep the story from leaking”. No cell phones were allowed in Jenner’s Malibu home, the set for the shoot. As for the post production?

The magazine was concerned about leaks and took security measures “every step of the way,” including on the photo shoot, in the VF editorial office and at the printing plant for the upcoming issue. The story and pictures were done on a single computer that was never connected to the Internet, with the assets put on a thumb drive every night and then deleted from the computer. The story was even hand-delivered to the printer.

Well, Vanity Fair, it worked.

Here’s a reminder of what Jenner looked like in his Olympic glory days:

KUWTK will air an eight-part series about Jenner’s transition, starting July 26th.

[Source: Vanity Fair HERE and HERE, CNN, Gawker]