‘Ohana Redefined
Photo courtesy Disney/Frank Micelotta
It may be an unconventional union for Mandie Taketa and her ex, Wayne Brady, but their connection in Hulu’s newest reality show, “Wayne Brady: The Family Remix,” is rooted in nothing but love.
“Eat!” Mandie Taketa exclaims when asked about her favorite homecoming ritual.
“I feel like anyone who doesn’t say ‘eat’ isn’t from Hawai‘i,” she jokes. “We order Zippy’s as soon as we get off the plane because that’s the fastest way to get food into our mouths.”
Taketa grew up in Kāne‘ohe but has lived in Los Angeles since the mid-’90s when she moved there with her then-boyfriend and later husband, Wayne Brady. You might know him from Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Let’s Make A Deal or The Wayne Brady Show.
For Taketa, her ex-husband, Brady (yes, they’ve got one of those rare, genuinely healthy post-divorce relationships), their 21-year-old daughter, Maile Masako Brady, Taketa’s life partner, Jason Michael Fordham, and their 3-year-old son, Sundance-Isamu, a visit to Hawai‘i isn’t about aloha shirts and Waikīkī resorts. It’s about crashing at her parents’ (Ronald and Hazel) place, sleeping in, and eating their weight in poke, laulau and mac salad. And when they finally emerge from their food comas, they schlep their way to a Windward beach for some much-needed vitamin “sea.”
The group affectionately call themselves the “Core Four” (a nickname coined before little Sundance joined the mix). Now, they’re stepping into the spotlight as the stars of Hulu’s latest reality show, Wayne Brady: The Family Remix. Far from the typical Hollywood glitz, this show peels back the curtain on Brady’s real life, beyond the dazzling stage lights and scripts.
Viewers will follow the Emmy Award-winning multihyphenate on deeply personal journeys: his coming out as pansexual, coping with the heart-wrenching loss of his grandmother Val (who raised him), struggling to raise a kid in the heart of Tinseltown and glimpses into his Broadway career.
But at its core, the show celebrates ‘ohana in all its beautiful, diverse forms.
“This concept of a blended family that everyone calls weird or modern up here in the larger part of the United States isn’t anything new to me or you,” Taketa says. “As soon as you walk through the front door in Hawai‘i, you open someone else’s fridge like it’s your family — that’s my cousin, that’s my ‘ohana. I just recreated a hānai family here in Los Angeles because it’s all I know. Who knew people would find it so entertaining?”
Brady chimes in, “We are very much believers in chosen family, and I think a lot of that is innate in how Mandie was raised. Once I married into the family years ago, I ended up with so many nieces and nephews and uncles and cousins that I never had by birth. That’s what really got me familiar with the concept of ‘These people can be your family, even if there are no blood ties.’
“This is the village that we chose to build,” he adds. “I really feel that that is a very, very local thing.”
A Castle High School graduate and former member of 24-7 Danceforce, Taketa auditioned for a show at Aloha Tower that starred Brady. At the time, he was “just a singer from Vegas,” she says with a hint of amusement.
Taketa was attending University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa on a dance scholarship when she fell in love with the singer and made the bold decision to move to LA with him to pursue her passion for dancing.
“We moved into a studio apartment that was $450 a month, utilities included, without knowing a single person,” she remembers. “I had 1,000 bucks in my pocket; he had 500. At that moment, we were family. The hustle started for us.”
It was during those lean times, Taketa explains, that their creative partnership truly began to take shape.
“I mopped floors in exchange for dance classes,” she says. “He was working at kids’ parties. We both got a job at Universal Studios, and I hip-hop danced when they cleaned up the slime. We did what we needed to do.”
She reflects on their early years with candor, “The rest was history for us. We hated each other, but we were too poor to leave each other. We needed the other one to pay the other half of the rent, and by the time we could afford rent, we didn’t want to leave each other. We loved each other.”
When Brady’s career began to take off, he and Taketa co-founded production company A Wayne & Mandie Creative. Together, they collaborated on Brady’s comedy specials, and Taketa has since co-produced and served as artistic director for the BET Awards and the American Music Awards.
“It was never about fame. It was never about stardom for Wayne either. I can honestly say that that man has never networked or gone to a party to meet people that could move him forward in his career,” Taketa says. “We’re happy to have food on our plates. We’re happy if we could take care of our parents. We’re happy if we can afford a plane ticket to fly home.”
The couple welcomed their daughter, Maile, in 2003, and ended their marriage in 2008, but it was hardly dramatic like the movies make divorce seem.
“He had these high-powered agents and managers and lawyers that ‘could protect him from me,’ and he’s just like, ‘From Mandie? She’s the one person who has my back even though we’re divorced.’
“We’re soulmates,” she continues. “Wayne knows everything about me, and I know everything about him, and that started a long time ago.
“The titles of our relationship have changed,” she adds. “We were boyfriend and girlfriend. We were married. We’re parents. We’re divorced. But the friendship part (never has).”
Taketa met Fordham in 2009 when he auditioned for a Brady show she was producing. (Auditions and falling in love seem to be a pattern for Taketa.) Their connection added a new dimension to the family’s dynamic.
Fordham reflects, “I think the one thing that I always did and that I recommend is that you do have to recognize that there is an existing family structure there, so you’re not there to alter that in any way. You’re there to support that, enhance that.”
When the foursome started to take on the world together, which included parent-teacher conferences, fertility treatments and more, the world looked back at them like they were crazy.
Taketa, however, sees their story as an opportunity to redefine family.
“The fact that we’re able to finally create a show where … some people are kind of like, ‘That’s really cool that you can love each other like that. That’s family. That’s the found family.’ That’s accessible for everyone to find people that love and accept you,” she says with pride.
“The show’s message is find the people that love you,” she continues. “They exist and you shouldn’t go through things alone. Your mental health is important. It doesn’t have to look any one way.
“Look at us, we’re a good example of that. Your life does not have to look like ours. What’s important is that you find people that love you for you, and that might not be your ex-husband or boyfriend or girlfriend or partner.
“Your family can look however it makes you feel safe, and that should be accepted by people,” she says. “That’s what I believe.”
What do you love most about Hawai‘i?
Mandie Taketa: “There’s so much to love. It’s the aloha spirit. It sounds generic but if you don’t possess it, you don’t respect it, you know? People see the kindness as weakness, but when you’re home, when you’re on the ‘āina — I’m tearing up talking about it — it’s like a hug from people you don’t know. And you gotta be local to have it. It’s the gratitude of your community, of your neighbors. Like, I don’t even know most of my neighbors’ names here in LA. My dad gives Christmas gifts to everyone within, like, 2 miles of his house.”
Jason Michael Fordham: “Well, hopefully this doesn’t sound too esoteric, but I like the peace. Like, I’m turned down. I like the slow pace. Everything in LA just buzzes so high to me that when I step off here, it’s just like, I relax.”
Wayne Brady: “When I first went to Hawai‘i, I was struck by how racially diverse and non-judgmental the culture was, so much so that I didn’t trust it. It wasn’t until I got to know a lot of my friends there and spent a lot of time there that I realized it’s all about love. If you get made fun of, it’s equal opportunity being made fun of. It’s all done in love. Being in a place that is so diverse, but not just one type of person — and everybody’s mixed — it’s really crazy that there aren’t more places like that here on the mainland. I think I love the acceptance most in Hawai‘i.”
Maile Masako Brady: “My favorite thing about Hawai‘i is the people … they’re some of the most resilient people and bloodlines you can encounter in such a small space. Everyone is so strong. Like, turn off the melody and like everyone has been through so much and gone through so much generationally, but there’s so much beauty on the island, in the food and in the music and in how you treat people and the concept of aloha and ‘ohana. I think it’s one of the most beautiful places and one of the places with the most kind and artistic people you’ll ever meet.”
