Actor Wayne Brady comes out as pansexual in revealing interview

Wayne Brady, the host of the game show Let’s Make a Deal, has come out as pansexual, someone who feels sexually attracted to people regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

In an interview with People magazine, the 51-year-old revealed that he has been undergoing “a lot of therapy” to better understand himself as a public actor and a private individual.

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He said that it was challenging to come to an understanding of his own pansexuality because he hasn’t “gotten a chance to act on anything” with others and is currently not seeing anybody. Despite this, he said, “I think, at least for me for right now, that [pansexuality] is the proper place.”

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Brady also revealed that his ex-wife, Mandie Taketa, was the first person he came out to. Brady has referred to Taketa as “ex-wife, soulmate, and business partner.” The two are co-parenting their 20-year-old daughter Maile and co-running their production company, A Wayne & Mandie Creative.

Taketa said she responded positively to his coming out because “I knew coming out would help him be happier.” He also came out to his daughter, who mostly shrugged and smiled, Brady said.

Brady said he grew up in Orlando, Florida with “a very thick stutter” that was “brought on by anxiety and bullying and stress.”

“I couldn’t communicate the way that I wanted to until I started acting, singing, and performing,” he said. The 2014 suicide of actor Robin Williams made him start exploring his own mental health so he could better understand how to navigate the world while also taking good care of himself mentally, emotionally, and physically.

“Once I opened that door to myself though… I had to start owning up to things that maybe I’d either repressed, suppressed, or just didn’t wanna deal with,” Brady said. “One of the last things on that checklist was, what’s one of the last things that you need to be really happy and to be truly, authentically yourself?”

He recognized that he felt a “love deficit” in his personal life and began treatment for “love addiction,” the compulsive drive to find happiness and fulfillment in others rather than also in one’s self.

Brady said he realized he would leave “a wake of people” without feeling satisfied and would eventually feel lonely.

“Let’s be really honest: I’ve also been attracted to certain men in my life,” he said. “But I’ve always pushed that aside because of how I was raised, and because I live in today’s world, and it’s scary as s**t.”

Growing up, Brady said he was used to hearing the word “gay” as an insult against other men, rather than as an attraction one could feel without shame.

“I’ve always had a wonderful community of friends who are in the LGBTQ+ community, people that I’ve grown up with in shows, gays and lesbians, and, later in life, my trans relatives and my niece,” Brady told the aforementioned magazine. “I’ve always had that community, but I’ve always felt like a sham because I wasn’t being forthcoming with myself.”

He said that, even though he long believed in his right to have a private life, he didn’t want to feel like he had to live a “secretive” part of his life “in the shadows.”

In the past, Brady has appeared in the improv comedy TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and played the drag queen Lola in the Tony Award–winning Broadway musical Kinky Boots. He has also appeared on and done voice acting for various shows such as 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, Sesame Street, Black Lightning, and RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Brady will appear in an upcoming eight-episode Hulu reality series about his family.