Despite coming out as pansexual in 2023, it’s been revealed that Wayne Brady secretly fathered a child earlier this year. The news comes as his Freeform reality series debuted this week. And the 51-year-old wasn’t exactly happy about it. The singer and television personality shared the revelation in the premiere episode of Wayne Brady: The Family Remix when speaking about his newborn son, Val, noting becoming a father again was “not on [his] bingo card.”
He added: “When I first found out … I was floored. A 51-year-old dad? I didn’t see it coming. So was I happy? No. Because I was in shock.” Now, 52, Brady says he had to figure out how to make the unconventional situation work.
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“[I am in] uncharted territory,” he said regarding co-parenting with his ex-girlfriend Tina, whom he “dated during the pandemic on and off” before they split. “How do I co-parent with this person that I am not with and make this work?” he asked. His ex-wife Mandie Taketa and their 21-year-old daughter, Maile, wasn’t welcoming to the news.
Taketa say she and Tina “don’t get along” before revealing the timeline of Tina and Wayne’s romance. “Tina and Wayne had been broken up a year. 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,” she said.
The series follows Brady’s modern family dynamic of living just minutes away from his ex, Taketa, and her new husband, who is the former background dancer for the personality. It seems Tina doesn’t fit into their blended family as much.
Taketa and Wayne “didn’t want her [Maile] to know about the pregnancy” because of “how she felt about Tina,” per her mother, Taketa. “Maile will say she warned Wayne about this happening,” Taketa said. Maile did not “initially [feel] super happy” about her half-sibling’s arrival and was “worried” about her father. “Tina does not live her life in complete honesty,” Maile said. “The string of events is suspicious. I don’t enjoy her presence.”
