Wayne Brady used his new Freeform reality series, Wayne Brady: The Family Remix, to drop some bombshells — including the revelation that he secretly welcomed a son.
During the season 1 premiere, which aired on Wednesday, July 24, Brady, 52, pulled back the curtain on his blended family with ex-wife Mandie Taketa, their daughter, Maile, and Taketa’s partner, Jason Michael Fordham. Brady subsequently admitted there were certain aspects of his life that he hasn’t made public.
“My family is everything to me but there are some things I’ve never told anybody outside of this immediate family. Like, I happen to have a 6-month-old son that people don’t know about,” he said in a confessional about his son, Val Henry, whom he shares with ex-girlfriend Tina.
Brady, who also previously came out as pansexual, explained the timeline of Val’s arrival, adding, “Tina and I dated during the pandemic on and off and then we broke up. Wayne Brady has a kid and he has two baby mamas.”
Meanwhile, Taketa explained to the cameras why Brady expanding his family came as such a shock.
“This is what happened. Tina and Wayne had been broken up a year,” she recalled. “Then [his] grandma Val passes away so we go to her funeral in the Virgin Islands then we come back. Something happened — you fill in the blank. Then two weeks later we get a phone call from Tina that she’s pregnant with Wayne’s baby.”
Footage from one year prior showed Brady breaking the news to Taketa. His ex-wife, however, wasn’t thrilled as she reminded Brady that he and Tina “don’t get along,” which is what led to their split.
“When I first found out that Tina was pregnant, I was floored. It was not on my bingo card,” Brady noted. “A 51-year-old dad? I didn’t see it coming. So was I happy? No. Because I was in shock.”
Despite being able to smoothly coparent with Taketa, Brady was still figuring out where he stood with Tina in terms of their child.
“Tina and I have to do this coparenting thing and the conversation has to start at some point, right?” he asked. “I’m in uncharted territory. How do I coparent with this person that I am not with and make this work?”
There was also the issue of Brady and Taketa’s daughter not being thrilled with the news. According to Taketa, their family held off on telling their now-21-year-old daughter about her new sibling because of Maile’s dislike of Tina.
“We didn’t want Maile to know about the pregnancy because we knew how she felt about Tina. Maile will say she warned Wayne about this happening,” Taketa shared on the show. “I didn’t make eye contact with Maile for three months.”
Maile agreed that she was not “initially super happy” about the milestone moment because of how “worried” she was for her father. Maīle specifically pointed out that she didn’t “trust” Tina, which led to distance between them.
A trailer for the first season of Wayne Brady: The Family Remix hinted at more issues from Maile, with her saying in the sneak peek clip, “Tina does not live her life in complete honesty. The string of events is suspicious. I don’t enjoy her presence.”
The shocking news weighed on Brady’s loved ones as he prepared to let others in on details about his personal life.
“Saying out loud some of the truths that I have is scary. I have a lot to lose. I have a reputation,” Brady told the cameras at the end of the episode. “I have my family’s income — all of these things could go away tomorrow.”
Wayne Brady: The Family Remix airs on Freeform Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. ET and is available to stream on Hulu the next day.
