As the feisty matriarch of the Jenner clan, she was rarely lost for words – and certainly knew how to deliver both barrels to any of her world-famous in-laws who crossed her.

Esther Jenner, whose death at age 96 was announced Friday, fired off a barrage of amusing and choicely worded barbs during an uproarious interview with DailyMail.com.

Her passing was announced by heartbroken Caitlin Jenner – who began life as her son Bruce and won Olympic decathlon gold before becoming a TV celebrity and transitioning.

Fiercely loyal to the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star, – then still Bruce – she reserved the vitriol for his 'controlling monster' ex-wife Kris, 67.

Speaking in 2014 shortly after their divorce, she revealed she was 'ecstatically happy' about the split following 23 years of marriage, saying of her former daughter-in-law: 'She could insult you with a big smile on her face. I know.'

Caitlyn Jenner's mother Esther Jenner died at the age of 96. DailyMail.com spoke to Esther in an exclusive interview in 2014 where she opened up about Caitlyn's marriage to Kris Jenner

Esther revealed she was 'ecstatically happy' about the split and said Kris 'could insult you with a big smile on her face. I know'

Esther's passing was announced by heartbroken Caitlin Jenner, who began life as her son Bruce and won Olympic decathlon gold before becoming a TV celebrity and transitioning

'What do you do with a person like that? You're going to avoid them if possible. She was backstabbing as far as my grandchildren were concerned, and that is something I can't stand.

'She's domineering – it's do it her way, or there's no way. I had very little to do with Kris. I stayed away from her as much as I could.'

And unable to resist speaking of Kris's boob job, she then quipped: 'Of course Kris got the biggest ones she could put in a long time ago.

'She told Pam (Bruce's sister) that when she went to have the implants done she told the doctor make them the biggest you can put in. That was before she ever married Bruce.'

Caitlin, 73, revealed Esther's death on Instagram Friday with the words: 'I am heartbroken to announce my mom passed away yesterday morning, peacefully.

'Losing a mother is unique in the sense that she is the only person that loved me my entire life. I will miss her tremendously. She was a few weeks shy of 97 and lived a full life. Love you mom.'

That love was always reciprocated and startling evident as Esther chatted in her home in unfashionable Lewiston, Idaho, a far cry from LA celebrity glamor.

She revealed she was thrilled at the divorce – her then son's third - saying: 'Bruce sounds so much happier now, when I talk to him he sounds like himself. I'm delighted.

'I hope she changes her name back to Kardashian I don't want her to carry the name.'

However, that wish was not granted.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star announced the sad news in a heartfelt Instagram post on Friday

Esther said last year that she spoke with her daughter every day. She remained loyal to the former Keeping Up With The Kardashians star 

Esther recalled visiting Kris and then-Bruce after Kendall and Kylie were born and being horrified by Kris's mothering method

Esther's resentment of Kris began soon after Bruce married her in Bel-Air in April 1991.

She remembered visiting them in LA after her daughters Kendall, now 27, and Kylie, 25, were born and being horrified by Kris's mothering methods.

She said: 'Kris never cooked that I know of, she was always running out to eat with her girlfriends and she left Bruce to take care of the two babies and he did.

'The only one I ever saw change the diapers was Bruce, I never saw Kris do it. He's the one that got them in the bath and in their pajamas at night, he's the one that took them back and forth to school when they were going to their private school, Kris didn't.

'I don't know why, she would take off on vacations, go to Cabo San Lucas with the girls. Kris hasn't bothered to bring up Kendall and Kylie, but Bruce has brought them up, thank God.'

Esther said she was never told the reason for the split.

'But he was so controlled, she was such a controller,' she said.

Continuing to be shockingly indiscreet, she added: 'I think he had it up to here. For all I know, Kris had a boyfriend… [like] when she was married to [Robert] Kardashian, she could have had somebody hanging around who knows, I don't know. I can't say she did because I don't stay that close to her.'

Esther was critical of Kris's parenting style. She said: 'Kris never cooked that I know of, she was always running out to eat with her girlfriends and she left Bruce to take care of the two babies and he did'

Esther made an appearance on the Kardashian show in 2013, but regretted it. In the episode she and Kris appeared to put their bad blood behind them, but Esther felt duped when she saw it air three months later 

Remarkably Esther had a copy of Kris's autobiography And All Things Kardashian on her bookshelf, which she read and was promptly appalled by.

She said: 'How could anybody write a book like that? All about how great her sex was with the guy who was in her life when she got a divorce (from Robert Kardashian).'

Esther made an appearance on the Kardashian show in 2013, but regretted it. In the episode she and Kris appeared to put their bad blood behind them, but Esther felt duped when she saw it air on the television three months later.

Caitlin's ex-wife wasn't the only person to receive Esther's homespun and charmingly-delivered disapproval – Kris's daughters Kim, 42, and Kourtney Kardashian, 44, came in for a pasting too as she admitted she never got along with them.

'Oh my God, the ways the girls display themselves … and it's all surgical work they've had done.

'What are they trying to prove?' she asked.

'Kris hasn't brought them up with any morals, you know, go out and go sleep with anybody… that sort of thing, you wouldn't tell your own children to do that.

'When Bruce and Kris got married I think Kourtney was maybe a freshman, Kim was probably junior high, Khloe was quite a bit younger and had the best personality, the other two weren't even interested in having a conversation with me, they were in a world of their own.'

Esther, who was an insurance agent, was married to Caitlin's late father Bill for 40 years. She spent 18 years with her second husband Sam, who is also dead, and had six happy years with her late husband Frank before he died in 2012.

In that time she lived in northern and southern California and Florida before ending up in Idaho because she and Sam studied a map, discovered they had never been to the American Northwest and fancied trying it out.

Esther with Kendall and Kylie, as well as Brody and Brandon Jenner and others in 2014

'I love him, no matter what,' Esther said of her then-son Bruce as he was transitioning into Caitlyn 

The enduring love between Esther and Caitlin was also obvious shortly before the latter came out as a trans woman in April 2015 – 39 years after setting a third successive decathlon world record at the Montreal Olympics.

As the then Bruce began to change physically, including a tracheal shave to reduce the size of the Adam's Apple, Esther was asked about the feminine transformation and the publicity it created – at a time when attitudes were different to those of today.

'I love him, no matter what,' she said.

'There's such raunchy publicity all the time. I don't know. I've brought this up to him on the phone when we've talked and he says 'mom you can't believe this stuff'.

'He said you can't pay any attention to this stuff and I said, 'well I want to tell you one thing Bruce, I don't care if what they're putting out is true or false, it's not going to change my love for you', and it's true that's exactly how I feel, but I don't like it.

'I will always love him, that can't stop.'

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