What Kris Jenner Was Like Before She Became Famous

#1 Keeping Up With Kristen Mary Houghton

Before she was a Kardashian or a Jenner, she was Kristen Mary Houghton, born in San Diego, California to a middle-class family. Her parents divorced when she was 7 years old, and Jenner and her younger sister, Karen Houghton, were raised by their mother, MJ, until she remarried. When her mother remarried, the family moved around a lot because of her stepfather's business.

#2 Come Fly With Kris

These days, Jenner is accustomed to jetting around the world in private planes and flying first class, but she was once on the less glamorous side of the friendly skies. After graduating from high school, she worked as a flight attendant for American Airlines. Jenner reportedly only held the job for a year but did manage to star in one of the airline's television commercials that aired on national networks.

#3 Her Cancer Scares

Kris is afraid of cancer and worries about it a lot. Jenner's mother, Mary Jo Shannon, has had a long battle with cancer, and the blood tests were reportedly an opportunity to set everyone's mind at ease. They aired the episode during season 11 of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and one daughter, Khloe, refused to have any part of the testing because she had already had a false skin cancer scare in 2008. However, she reportedly found out that she had a cancerous bone tumor, but following a successful surgery, doctors determined she was cancer-free.

#4 When Robert Met Kris

Kris's romance with attorney Robert Kardashian was love at first sight—at least, for him. Jenner reportedly met Robert at the Del Mar horse racing track in California when she was just 17. Even though he was 11 years her senior, and she reportedly rejected his initial proposal, the debonair lawyer was not deterred. She wasn't that impressed with him.

#5 Persistence Paid Off

Robert refused to give up on Kris, telling her that she was his soul mate. His persistence would later benefit him during the biggest case of his career—but we'll get to that in a bit. Jenner accepted Robert's second proposal, and the two wed in 1978. So began Jenner's high-profile life. Consider her the original real housewife of Beverly Hills.

#7 Every Career Begins With 'K'

After their wedding, Jenner and Robert wasted no time building the infamous Kardashian clan. In 1979, the newlyweds welcomed the first Kardashian kid, Kourtney. Kim and Khloe followed close behind with their famous, matching "K" names. With her sister's help in raising her children while Robert was busy in his law practice, she continued raising their family.

#6 Along Came Rob

Robert Jr., the couple's only son, was born in 1987. Twenty years before the premiere of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Jenner was already chasing after four of its stars.

#8 The Affair To Remember

As she details in her 2011 memoir, Kris began an affair while still married to Robert, with a cartoonist and former soccer star Todd Waterman. This is the same man she had an affair with during her second marriage. She was still married to Robert, though they split up in 1990 because of the affair, and rumors abound that he is Khloe's father. Her book describes the affair as being filled with "wild crazy sex all the time. We had sex in cars, sex on the tennis court, sex in the pool house, sex in the garage when we got home, sex up and down the stairs, sex everywhere, all the time."

She sites Waterman as the only regret in her entire life and recalls how it was the last straw for Robert, who filed for divorce, practically leaving Kris penniless aside from the child support.

#9 When Kris Met Bruce

Before the ink was dry on Kris and Robert's divorce papers, she went on a blind date with Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner. The connection was undeniable, and the two were married within a year. In fact, Bruce had to meet with Robert and ask him to finalize the divorce, so he and Kris could get hitched.

#10 The Jenner Bunch

She became stepmother to Bruce's children from his two previous marriages: Burt, Casey, Brandon, and Brody Jenner, and he became the stepfather of Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe. Eventually, the couple would welcome Kylie and Kendall Jenner as well, and that's the way they all became the Jenner Bunch.

Of course, as noted previously, she cheated on Bruce as well, and with the same man who split her first marriage up, Todd Waterman. However, Bruce stood by his wife and probably saw bigger things in his future. The affair was apparently brief, according to Kris in her 'tell all' book.

#11 Her Two Husbands

Robert and Kris remained the best of friends, and he and Bruce got along extremely well, often having huge family get together's and vacations with both men in attendance and having a good time. Kris says, "Robert and I were close friends at the end of his life, close friends. And so was Bruce. I have some of the greatest pictures of him holding Kylie and Kendall as babies and they knew him as Uncle Robert."

#12 The Trial Of A Lifetime

Whether the O.J. Simpson case brings to mind the chase seen around the world or the infamous quote, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," the impact of the murder case on recent history is undeniable, which is why it is often referred to as the "trial of the century." Few were closer to the drama than Kris. Not only was she good friends with the football star's murdered ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, but she also watched her ex-husband serve on the "Dream Team" of attorneys defending the man accused of killing her friend.

During the high-profile, televised trial, Kris, who was pregnant with Kendall at the time, notably sat in court wearing Nicole's hand-me-down maternity clothes. In another attempt to keep her friend's memory alive, Kris gave her first daughter with Bruce the name Kendall Nicole Jenner.

#13 Stepping Into The Spotlight

We all know that Mama Jenner is an overachiever by nature, which is why she wasn't content with just being Bruce's wife. She had to be his manager as well. She spent a good deal of the mid-'90s negotiating her husband's endorsement deals and creating an assortment of highly profitable opportunities. From putting together press kits to booking speeches, she did it all! In 1994, the couple premiered a self-produced infomercial and launched a line of fitness equipment. The infomercial, "Super Fit With Bruce Jenner", reportedly ran 2,000 times a month in 17 countries.

Never camera shy, Kris realized yet another one of her many talents as a correspondent for the ABC daytime talk show Mike and Maty during the mid-'90s, refining the gift for gab that would eventually lead to the premier of her own talk show, Kris, in 2013. Although her time as a correspondent was short-lived, it showcased her undeniable passion for show business and perhaps planted the seed for the biggest career move of her life, pitching Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

#14 They Started Out Pretty 'Plain'

Before she was producing sex tapes for her daughter and booking Playboy shoots, Kris was just another stay at home mom with an uncanny ability to weave careers of gold for her kids. She pitched the idea for a reality show following her relatively unknown family to entertainer mogul Ryan Seacrest in 2007, and the rest is history. She has blasted Seacrest for his comments that he hadn't planned on using the family because they were so 'plain' but the E Network wanted to go with them instead of the people he was filming.

#15 Stay At Home 'Momager'

Although the high-powered "Momager" (She actually trademarked the term) has been able to keep her kids in check, relatively speaking, a producer's literal inability to keep up with the Kardashian family is the reason the show is called Keeping Up With the Kardashians.