Caitlyn Jenner has admitted to being a bad parent to her four oldest children and the regrets she has from not being there for them.

In a candid interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, the 67-year-old transwoman confessed that she was too focused on coming to terms with her gender identity when Brandon, Brody, Bert and Casey Jenner were young.

"I was struggling with myself too much to be a good parent," she said.

"I can't use that as an excuse because no matter what your problems are, you gotta be there for your kids, and I really wasn't. And that's something you regret, later on in life you try to make it up to your kids and say sorry."

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Caitlyn, whose new book Secrets Of My Life documents her transition from Bruce Jenner, said marrying Kris Jenner in 1991 turned her life around, after she'd spent the 1980s convinced she had to transition before she turned 40.

"[Our marriage] started off petty darn good. Kris was great, she turned my life around, she brought love and kids into my life, she brought work in, she became a very good business manager and turned my career around," she said.

But since their divorce in 2015, Caitlyn has decided to leave her romantic past behind her, saying she continues to "stay lonely".

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"I'm not looking to date anybody. If I had a buddy, someone to hang out with and share life with, that would be great. But I'm married to my little community here," she said.

The trans activist, who wants to use her platform to help other people with gender identity problems, also addressed the controversy she'd stirred up among feminists – particularly comments she'd made at the 2015 Glamour Awards about how choosing clothes was the hardest part of being a woman.

"I am firmly on the side of womanhood, but I am not a woman," she stated.

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"That's honestly the way I feel – my journey to womanhood was not the same as normal women, cis women who grew up that way. I would never want to diminish women in the sense that, 'oh, now I'm a woman and I know everything.' No, I don't! I got a lot to learn," she added.

It came after an extract from Caitlyn's book told how she used to steal clothes and makeup from her step-daughters Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian so she could cross-dress in private.

To prevent her five daughters and son Rob from finding out, Kris banned Caitlyn from having her clothes and makeup out on display – meaning Caitlyn had to put her possessions in a small, locked closet in the back of her wardrobe.

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"Kris and I have negotiated this, since she is terrified, as I am, of the kids finding something."

Eventually, keeping it to herself became too much for Caitlyn – who thought she might have to stipulate in her will to be buried as a woman – and she came out as trans.

"It is so easy, so natural, so effortless, so much fun: the way my life was always supposed to be," she adds.