Olympic champion turned reality TV star Bruce Jenner has Americans’ rapt attention once again amid talk that he is soon to come out as transgender.

People magazine, a trusted conduit for Hollywood publicists, reported this week that Jenner, 65, would open up in a forthcoming interview with ABC News.

“Bruce is transitioning to a woman,” the celebrity news weekly quoted a source close to the family as saying, after weeks of tabloid speculation.

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“He is finally happy and his family is accepting of what he’s doing. He’s in such a great space. That’s why it’s the perfect time to do something like this.”

Jenner’s 88-year-old mother Esther Jenner, who lives in Idaho, meanwhile told RadarOnline.com that she had “just learned” about her son’s gender transition.

“I have never been more proud of Bruce for who he is, himself as a father, as an Olympian, a wonderful public speaker,” she told the gossip website.

“He instills enthusiasm in people. He’s gifted.”

In the latest twist, the Kardashian family – into which Jenner has been married – cancelled all press events on Thursday in the run-up to season 10 of their hit reality TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Jenner himself has been lying low, ahead of the premiere of a documentary that will reportedly chronicle his gender transition.

Speculation that the actor, race-car enthusiast and 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics decathlon gold medallist is undergoing a sex change has been rich fodder for supermarket tabloids for months.

Supposed telltale signs, based on paparazzi photos from the streets of Los Angeles, include shaved limbs, long hair worn in a ponytail and what appears to be a sports bra under a T-shirt.

In late January, Jenner was seen emerging from a Beverly Hills clinic with a bandage around neck, presumably after surgery to flatten his Adam’s apple.