Wayne Brady on ex-wife, her husband: 'It's not a throuple'

LOS ANGELES, July 24 (UPI) -- Wayne Brady said the Freeform reality series, Wayne Brady: The Family Remix, premiering Wednesday at 10 p.m. EDT, will clear up some misconceptions about his relationship with his ex-wife, Mandie Taketa.

Cameras follow Wayne Brady, 52, and Taketa, 48, co-parenting their daughter, Maile Brady, 21, harmoniously with Taketa's current husband, Jason Fordham.

"It's not a throuple," Wayne Brady told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "It'd be possible for someone else, but we're very clear."

Taketa acknowledged that even her and Wayne Brady's families were surprised they could get along after a divorce, but they are no longer romantic. Fans seeing the family dance together on TikTok also made assumptions about polyamory.

"People have been saying weird stuff about us," Taketa said. "I'm not judging because that's possible, but we're not that."

Wayne Brady and Taketa were married from 1999 to 2008. Maile Brady was born in 2003 and entered show business at 15 on The Bold and the Beautiful.

She said even her friends in school asked her questions about her parents and stepfather.

"I think now that's also being cleared up as to how you make it work," Maile Brady said to her parents.

Wayne Brady said many people assume that ex-spouses only grudgingly get along when they have children together, adding he would not want to have that kind of relationship with Taketa.

"I think that's weird," he said.

The Family Remix also finds Wayne Brady at a personal turning point. Having felt attraction to both men and women, he decides to come out as pansexual.

"The show isn't about just me and that thing," Wayne Brady clarified. "So if I can be honest with my family and with the world, now I can move the way that I want to and it feels good."

He said he wanted to fully explore exactly what his sexuality is before he came forward with it.

"I don't feel like I identify as someone who is gay," Wayne Brady said. "I love women, but the term of bisexual seems very limiting then. What else is there? Oh, it's pansexuality."

Wayne Brady has been on television since the '90s run of the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, hosted a variety show and the game show Let's Make a Deal, and acted on stage and screen.

He wrapped a Broadway run in The Wiz earlier this year, and had performed music on Whose Line and his variety show. Taketa and Fordham are dancers, and Maile Brady recorded them performing on TikTok.

The Freeform cameras caught them dancing around the house, too.

"That's definitely one of the throughlines," Fordham said. "We love music, we love dance and we love community."

There are more revelations about the Brady family even in the show's first episode that are spoilers embargoed until they air. One development Maile Brady could talk about was moving into Wayne Brady's guest house as her off-campus housing during her junior year at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

"That's where I am right now," Maile Brady said. "I love it. It's private. It's really messy right now."

The show documents some of the drama between Maile and Wayne Brady over the move, but now he gives her credit.

"She's a good tenant," Wayne Brady said.

New episodes of Wayne Brady: The Family Remix air Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and stream on Hulu Thursdays.