Less than a decade after their friendship broke boundaries while playing out for the cameras, Candis Cayne and Caitlyn Jenner are no longer in each other’s lives.

Cayne tells the Messenger how their relationship fell apart.

“We just don’t really talk anymore,” Cayne said, ”because I can’t separate my friendship with her and her belief system anymore.”

Jenner has talked openly about her Republican values, which included a 2021 gubernatorial run in California during which the former Olympian supported a ban of trans girls in women’s sports. More recently, she has thrown her support behind Donald Trump — whom she had previously denounced — in his run to be re-elected as president.

Cayne said she and a group of girls ”really tried to show her the light, and how important our cause was, and the only way you can get that is if you lean left.”

However, those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, with Cayne calling her former friend a ”a cult member, a Fox News cult member.”

“It’s sad,” Cayne said, ”because I’ve had so many fun times and experiences with her.”

While Cayne noted she still has love for Jenner, she’s not hopeful about a reconciliation anytime soon.

“I wish she would see the light,” Cayne said. “I just don’t want to spend time with anybody that can’t understand the other side.”

Cayne — who hosts Advocate Channel’s Candis Cayne’s Secret Garden — also explained how progress with trans representation in the media stalled once Donald Trump entered the Oval Office.

“I think we were making strides especially under [Barack] Obama,” Cayne  told The Messenger, ”and when [Trump] was elected, it started to give people a freedom to abuse our community, especially the trans community.”

“We were getting to a place where we were starting to flourish in the media, and let’s just face it, things change when people see it on film and television — see it in a positive light and understand what we go through,” Cayne continued. “When that stopped, change can’t happen.”

On making her show Candis Cayne’s Secret Garden a celebration of queer and trans joy, Cayne said ”The first five roles I ever did, I got murdered. One was in a toilet. The world is used to seeing trans people in areas of trauma and abuse. So it’s important to see fun and laughter and jokes.”

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