During the pandemic, one of the more delightful sights on TikTok were dance videos made by Wayne Brady and his family. They were delightful because it showed that Brady’s family consisted of not only his then-teenage daughter, but his ex-wife and her life partner, as well. It was a view of a successful blended family that was heartwarming. But, like everything in life, that heartwarming view was the result of a hell of a lot of work, much of it by Brady himself. In a new reality series, Brady and his blended family navigate life as well as Brady’s plan to publicly come out as pansexual, which he did in August of last year. But that’s not the only secret he was keeping from the public.
WAYNE BRADY: THE FAMILY REMIX: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We see scenes of Wayne Brady doing all the things he does, including hosting Let’s Make A Deal, as a member of the troupe on Whose Line Is It Anyway, singing, dancing, and pretty much working his butt off. He even mentions his infamous Chappelle’s Show sketch from 20 years ago. “‘You gonna choke a bitch?’ Not today, sir,” Brady says to the camera.
The Gist: As if Wayne Brady doesn’t have enough to do, he is doing the reality series Wayne Brady: The Family Remix for a couple of reasons. One is to show his life with his blended family — his 20-year-old daughter Maile Masako Brady, his ex-wife and best friend Mandie Taketa, Mandie’s life partner Jason Fordham and Mandie and Jason’s toddler son Sundance.
The other reason is that, when the series was shot in 2023, Brady had not come out as pansexual, which he did to People magazine last August. As part of his plan to live and love the way he wants, especially as he gets into his fifties, his plan is to come out publicly. At the time of filming, the only people that know is the other three members of what they call the “Core Four.”
The first people he wants to come out to are Vincent and Joe, the co-founders of a PR firm called ConCreates. They also happened to be incarcerated earlier in their lives. Brady figures that his friends can give him an indication of how his coming out will not only play in the Black community, and not only his other friends and family, but the audiences that enjoy his work.
In the meantime, Maile is looking for a place to live for her junior year at Loyola Marymount University. It seems that it’s a tradition for upperclassmen at LMU to live off-campus, and Brady offers her an LMU he created in his garage. Of course, it’s full of extra furniture. And Maile isn’t sure if she wants to live so close to her “helicopter” parents.
There’s another secret Brady needs to work out: Six months before filming, he had a son with an on-again-off-again girlfriend Tina, the result of an encounter during one of their “off” periods. Mandie knows that they’re currently not getting along, but Wayne needs to figure out how to co-parent in this situation. Also, Maile is not a fan of her half-brother’s mother, and Brady has no idea how he’ll establish a family situation of Maile isn’t on board.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Wayne Brady: The Family Remix is in a pretty standard celebrity reality show format, a format that goes all the way back to The Osbournes.
Our Take: Wayne Brady has spent at least the last decade chipping away at the public persona he had built since the 1990s. He talked about being clinically depressed in 2014, then started showing his blended family in pandemic-era dance TikToks. We’ve always known that there was a bit of an “other side” to what Brady showed the public, but The Family Remix shows that this other side was at times dark, at other times really complicated.
The first episode gives us a lot of insight into just where Brady was at the time he decided to come out as pansexual. His grandmother, who had raised him, died the previous year, and between that and the son he had with his sometimes-girlfriend, Brady knew that he couldn’t keep living an inauthentic life as he ventured into his fifties. So the idea that during this series he was going to take the steps he needed to take to come out publicly is really admirable.
Brady admits to a lot of things in the first episode, including the fact that he was at first not OK with Mandie dating Jason, who was a dancer for Brady’s stage show. This is despite the fact that he and Mandie had been divorced for five years. So the picture of this happy, and a bit unusual, blended family was something that everyone had to work on to foster.
Given Brady’s previous penchant to keep his private life private, opening his family life and inner struggles to cameras, even with editorial control, which we presume he has as an executive producer, is a huge leap for him, one that seemed to be in the works for awhile, as the footage shot in snippets labeled “A Year Ago” indicate. We’re not sure what that footage was for and why an entire year went by before he and his family went forward with the show. But having that footage there makes for an interesting reference point to everything going on in the Brady-Takeda-Fordham family.
Sex and Skin: Besides Maile telling a friend that she had sex in the family home while they were all living there during the pandemic, there’s nothing.
Parting Shot: Brady tells Vincent and Joe about the son he had with Tina, and they’re much more surprised about that than the news about him being pansexual.
Sleeper Star: Maile Brady has her father’s quick wit and ability to improvise, and she’s very comfortable giving both her parents the business now that she’s an adult.
Most Pilot-y Line: Brady knew Vincent and Joe for only two years before telling them about coming out, and he felt that they were his most trusted confidants outside his family. When he talked about knowing them for two years, the tone made it sound like he knew them longer than that. That more than anything might be the most telling thing about Brady’s life to that point.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Wayne Brady: The Family Remix has elements of being a silly celebrity reality show, but Brady leaves himself really open while cameras document a very personal time of his life, and that’s the best aspect of the series.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Wayne Brady: The Family Remix’ On Freeform, A Reality Series About The Comedian’s Blended Family And His Decision To Come Out As Pansexual appeared first on Decider.
