Wayne Brady knows his blended family is unique. When pitching their story to television studios, he was determined not to sacrifice authenticity for ratings. He realized that the only way to genuinely show who they are and the love they share was to do it as a reality series.
In Wayne Brady: The Family Remix, which premieres July 24 on Freeform, the actor and host of Let’s Make a Deal found a way to showcase his modern family, known as the “core four,” on their own terms.
“We can’t win by being somebody else. We can only win by being us,” Brady told Yahoo Entertainment. “If we do our show like any of the other shows, we lose immediately. We aren’t those people, those aren’t our lives. We have a very specific type of existence.”
The core four includes Brady, his ex-wife and best friend, Mandie Taketa, with whom he co-parents their 21-year-old daughter, Maile Brady, as well as Jason Fordham, Taketa’s life partner since 2009 and with whom she shares 2-year-old son Sundance-Isamu.
Each member of the core four plays an important role in the family’s production company, A Wayne & Mandie Creative. Viewers will see their quirky sense of humor against the backdrop of a uniquely blended family that’s gone through its fair share of challenges.
In August 2023, Brady publicly came out as pansexual — an attraction to anyone regardless of their gender identity or expression. He said his family were among his biggest supporters.
“Talking to my family was probably the least stressful part,” he said of the experience. “Growing up in the religious house that I did, there’s so much shame having thoughts that weren’t seen as normal. So coming out to the person I love, Mandie, I felt weird and shameful. But then I got over it because she didn’t shame me.”
Brady’s daughter recalled the day she found out her dad identified as pansexual, having overheard her parents talking about it one day when she wasn’t in the room.
“It wasn’t even a big deal when I found out,” Maile said. Having an open dialogue about the subject was a healing experience for everyone involved, she explained.
“Talking through things rather than working around them is the best thing anyone can do for themselves,” she said. “People need to confront their feelings with the people they love — to fight for something, rather than fighting against each other.”
‘Our life is much more exciting than anything a writer could create’
Taketa said she wanted the show to model how families can prosper after going through its ups and downs: divorce, coming out, loss and new love. Instead of focusing on trauma and past regrets, she wanted to showcase how families rise up from those challenges stronger than before.
“Jason being jealous of Wayne was so 10 years ago,” she told Yahoo Entertainment. “We’re not there anymore, and we’re not gonna play that.”
Fordham added that their family dynamics are the most important aspect of the show. “Wayne comes over twice a day. He basically lives at the house,” he said. “We’re meshed in the most healthy way in each other’s lives, to support each other.”
The family had tried to tell their story on television before.
Brady said his family had several sitcom deals in the works at one point, which would have turned their story into a scripted series. Unfortunately, he said, none of those pilots portrayed them authentically.
“The sitcom stories weren’t good, and it didn’t represent this blended family of color in the right way,” Brady explained. “It was through the filter of, to be honest, a white writer.”
Some scripts, he said, depicted Mandie as a Korean who spoke with a thick accent. In reality, she’s Japanese and Caucasian, and was born in Hawaii.
“When we were talking to these writers, we were like, ‘Why don’t you just use what actually happened to us?’” Taketa would say. “Our life is much more exciting than anything a writer could create.”
Fordham recalls a writer who pitched them a “Curb Your Enthusiasm-type” show inspired by his family’s backstory.
“I get you have to make things entertaining and marketable and all these kinds of things,” he said. “But at the end of the day, no one can write our voices. As long as we show up together, that’s really all the show needs at the end of the day.”
“There was no respect,” Brady said of those pilot scripts. “Maile being of Black, Asian and Caucasian descent, Jason being biracial, none of that was truly seen and respected. That’s when we said, ‘Screw it, let’s do a reality show so we can do it our way.’”
In the end, Taketa said the show became a testament to how far her family has come — and the strength they’ve found in their unity and acceptance of one another, which she hopes can be a lighthouse for others.
“You gotta be someone’s safe place,” she said. “If you’re trying to make a family work when someone’s not accepting of you, go find another family. That’s not family.”
Wayne Brady: The Family Remix premieres July 24 at 10 p.m. ET on Freeform, and streams the next day on Hulu.
