Bruce Jenner, the Olympic gold medalist and member of the Kardashian family, ended months of speculation when he announced during a television special that he identified as a woman and was transitioning to female.

The announcement made him among the highest-profile people to publicly come out as transgender. For the purpose of the interview, Mr. Jenner said he preferred the pronoun “he,” and Ms. Sawyer called him Bruce. He said that he had been undergoing hormone therapy for a year and a half but had not made up his mind about reassignment surgery. He declined to provide the name he might use during or after his transition, citing privacy concerns.

According to Nielsen Social, a total of 8.1 million people in the US saw one or more of the 972,000 tweets sent about the 2-hour special, “Bruce Jenner – The Interview” The tweets were sent by 403,000 people and viewed 139 million times, making Jenner’s official declaration that he is a transgender individual who identifies as a woman the top worldwide trend on Friday. See more of Jenner's interview here