The modern day Brady Bunch

I kid you not when I say I believe Wayne Brady is the most talented multidimensional performer of my lifetime. When I say multidimensional, I mean all the usual things like acting on film and stage, singing, and dancing, but also being witty and funny enough to do improv comedy and having the charisma to host game and award shows.

I have always been a huge fan of the show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” For those who have never seen it, what is wrong with you? Anyway, it is a make-believe improvisational game show with four participants who get awarded fake points.  The participants are given challenges by a game show host such as, “You are both at a fast food restaurant. Colin, you are the cashier behind the counter taking Ryan's order, but you have to do it in the style of Michael Jackson. And Ryan, you are confused by the menu and you are trying to place an order while acting and speaking like Captain Kirk from Star Trek. Off you go.”

Or maybe the contestants are given boxes of crazy props and the host gives them a topic such as, “It is a hot day on the beach,” and you have to use the props in the most creative ways that tie in with that theme.

The four contestants are the best improvisational comedians you will ever see. At least I think so. My girlfriend always gives me a weird look when I constantly laugh so hard that tears come down my face. She doesn’t find the show nearly as funny as I do. Then again, I think few do. 

I’ve gone to see them live a few times when they tour the country. The four contestants on the television show are not always the same, but two of them, Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles, are veterans of the show and I don’t ever remember seeing an episode without them. I’ve seen both of them a couple of times when they’ve taken their show on the road. The other two seats on the TV show alternate, but Wayne Brady has been pretty much a fixture since he joined the show in 1998.

Sometimes one, two, three, or all the performers are called upon to make up songs on the spot. It is the most remarkable part of the show to me. Wayne Brady is, usually, featured in these skits. He is far and away the best at it. The host may tell him, “I want you to make up a song about walking your dog at the park in the style of a lounge singer on a cruise.” And Brady will think for a second and then think of lyrics and sing for a good two or three minutes. And the songs are usually pretty good. Rarely, Brady will struggle to make a rhyme or will come up with a lyric that makes no sense. Those are the funniest moments because Brady has no problem laughing hysterically at himself.

Brady has also shown off his talents in theatre productions of Hamilton. He almost won Dancing With The Stars. He did win Masked Singer in which contestants sing with their identity hidden by elaborate costumes and four celebrity judges need to try to guess who the performers are based only on their voice. Many of the contestants are well-known professional singers. And Brady came out on top!

It doesn’t end there. He has also hosted Let’s Make A Deal, a real game show this time. His personality is just captivating and intoxicating. He exudes charisma and kindness. Basically, you would think Wayne Brady is on top of the world. You would be wrong.

Participants on Dancing With The Stars are shown rehearsing for their performances. Interspersed in the rehearsal vignette are interviews with the celebrities in which sometimes they get real personal.

A few weeks into the season, I was shocked to hear Wayne Brady admit to the world that he suffered from major depression. It all came to a head on his 42nd birthday when he told Entertainment Tonight, “I was there by myself, in my bedroom, and had a complete breakdown.”

“Just go ahead and imagine for yourself, just a brother in his underwear in his room, crying – he’s got snots. And on that birthday was the beginning of, ‘OK, I’ve gotta make a change.’”

I was shocked. As he put it, “And folks say, ‘Well, Wayne Brady is always happy. NO I AM NOT ALWAYS HAPPY! Because I am human.” I am guilty as charged. I was of the belief that Brady was always laughing and smiling that million dollar smile. In another interview, Brady said it was "like the doctor who can’t cure himself.”

I have been a huge Wayne Brady fan since way before Dancing With The Stars, Masked Singer, and Let’s Make A Deal. I couldn’t understand that this person who brought me so much joy and cheered me up for over two decades could be so sad. I, seriously, would put on Whose Line Is It Anyway? whenever I was having a bad day and it never failed to make me laugh.

And Brady wasn't just sad. I’ve seen every Wayne Brady interview on YouTube, and he never comes out and uses the word “suicide.” He would say he was in a very, very dark place. You didn’t have to look too deep into his eyes to understand what he meant.

I can picture him doubling over laughing on Whose Line. All the jokesters would crack up at the others’ antics, but there was something about the way Brady laughed that seemed more real and contagious. I wished I had as much talent as Brady. I didn't know how he did it. His star was on the rise and there seemed to be no limit to what heights he was going to achieve. I wanted to be Brady.

To hear Brady talk about his depression, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Come to think of it, I was Wayne Brady. At the very core of it, his story is my story. 

He has talked about how he was brought up believing that admitting to needing psychiatric help was a sign of weakness. Brady would say how at family functions when he was younger, someone would say something like, "'Look over there at Crazy Willy. What's he doing now? That guy is nuts.'" It would be a joke.

Like I mentioned earlier, Wayne Brady could remember the exact moment he realized he needed help. It is like a volcano erupting. A tourist looking at a dormant volcano from afar may admire its majesty and beauty. What the tourist doesn’t see is the pressure building inside the volcano. What the tourist doesn’t appreciate is that the volcano can erupt at any moment unannounced.

For Wayne Brady, that eruption occurred on his 42nd birthday. For me it happened on October 5, 2021, at around 2 p.m. when I was sitting in my car in a quiet corner of a medical building’s parking lot. I had just finished my annual physical with my doctor and had started driving out of the parking lot. But I had to park the car again.

This was six months after my mother died. We were almost two years into the COVID pandemic. Almost my entire management team had quit in the previous two months. I was taking on too many responsibilities and thinking I could do it all.

Like Brady, I broke down at that moment in the parking lot. I am pretty sure I didn’t have the snots that Brady mentioned, but tears were definitely streaming down my face. I slumped over the steering wheel. I banged on it with both hands over and over. I screamed. I needed help. I needed help. I NEEDED HELP! The admission to myself went against every fiber of my being.

But I physically couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn't picture myself going to work the next day. I am not sure which one came first – coming to terms that I needed mental help or my physical body completely shutting down. I think it was my body telling my mind enough is enough. It was the only way to get through to my brain. My body had to go on strike.

And like Brady, I, too, always came across as being cheerful when around family and friends. Work was a different story, but even there I was known for being very even keel and never showing anger. I had friends inside and outside of work tell me they couldn’t think of one time when they heard me yell or raise my voice to someone. One of my longtime managers and dear friend of about ten years, Debby, was frustrated with that personality trait of mine. She didn't know anybody like me. I never cracked. I cannot tell you how happy and proud (and maybe turned on?) she was when one day I did yell at, and almost got into a physical altercation with, an abusive customer who was insulting one of my employees.

Brady mentioned how the death of fellow comedian, Robin Williams, in 2014 deeply affected him. I remember exactly where I was when I heard Williams was found dead in his home. I was checking into a room at the Giacomo Hotel in Niagara Falls. I had just put my suitcase down on the bed and was glancing outside the window at the mist and slight rainbow off in the distance above the Falls when my girlfriend gasped, looked up from her phone, and gave me the news.

The same way I assumed Wayne Brady was happy and fun loving all the time, Brady, as well as all of us, thought Robin Williams was the same hyper-energetic, funny man offscreen as he was on. Williams had made one or two guest appearances on Whose Line alongside Brady. Surprisingly, Williams was a bit of a disappointment on the show.

Once the world found out more details about Williams’ battle with insecurity, sobriety, and depression, Brady was motivated to seek help. He no longer cared what people would think. He didn't care if his career went down the toilet. He didn’t want to meet the same fate as Robin Williams. And that is where he thought it was headed.

“I thought about Robin. And I thought about his exit. I didn’t want that to be me. And the truth is, it could have been,” he said in an interview on SiriusXM.

Brady was also keeping another secret. For years, Brady was hiding his sexuality not only from the public, but maybe even from himself. He only recently came out as saying he is pansexual. What is pansexual, you ask? My understanding is that it means you are not limiting who you are attracted to. Pansexual means you are or could be attracted to anyone and everyone. 

Brady has mentioned in several interviews that it does not mean that he is going around having sex with everyone. It does not mean you will see him dancing down the streets at Gay Pride parades. He just is who he is. He doesn't want to show it off. He doesn't want to be a poster boy for any cause. He just wants to be honest with everybody and himself, and to live free of shame and guilt.

One can only imagine that hiding his sexuality contributed to his depression. As a man, and, as Brady has said, as a black man growing up in tough neighborhoods, depression and being gay just weren’t things. You had an image to uphold. You were a man! You had to be a badass. You couldn’t show any weakness. God forbid anyone see you cry. And a real man had sex with lots of women. That was the standard.

Brady credits his only daughter, 20-year-old Malie, for being supportive. He has mentioned Malie’s generation is more enlightened and that he is a better person for what he has learned from them. Malie had no hesitation in accepting and supporting Wayne's "coming out.".

The person, however, who has been most supportive is his ex-wife, Mandie Taketa. The two were married from 1999 to 2008. Brady has suggested that were it not for her insisting he get help for his depression, he probably wouldn’t be here today. The same goes for me and my partner, Erin. Were it not for her being extremely supportive of me, I may not be here today. What other partner would stick it out with a depressed person who has been doing nothing but moping around the house for two years? Actually, Mandie didn't.

But Mandie and Wayne are good friends to this day. Wayne Brady still refers to her as his "best friend." They have garnered some publicity lately for their co-parenting style. Brady, his ex-wife, her current boyfriend, and Malie all get along very well and spend a lot of time together. Brady mentions that the families have never lived more than seven minutes apart.

It is very important to have that “rock” in your life. It already is an extremely difficult thing for a person suffering from depression to admit they need help and to follow through and get that help. It is astronomically more difficult if the people around you aren’t supportive. Again, no person can do it alone. And it doesn’t mean just having a therapist or psychiatrist help you. You only see them for a couple hours every week. It is the other people that you are around for days at a time that also need to be supportive and compassionate.

I am very fortunate that, like Brady, I have that support. OK, my employers weren’t understanding, but who cares about them at this point? My partner, her family, my closest friends, and, surprisingly, my father have been extremely sensitive to my situation. These are the people that matter in my life. Sometimes I sense they are walking on eggshells as they talk to me. They watch the words they choose to speak, the tone of their voice, their body language. I notice all of it, and I appreciate it. All it would take is for one person to ask, “What the hell is taking you so long to snap out of it?” to set me back to the beginning.

So, thank you, Wayne Brady for your candidness and your courage to go public with your battles with mental illness. The lesson here is to seek help. There is no shame in it. Today’s society is understanding and enlightened. For the most part, they understand that depression can be a chemical imbalance and is not just some kind of “funk' or fog that a person is in.

If you are feeling alone and having thoughts of suicide—whether or not you are in crisis—or know someone who is, don’t remain silent. Talk to someone you can trust through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 or chat the lifeline.