Wayne Brady opens up about fearing for his daughter’s safety

Wayne Brady has spent the past 20 years as a welcomed guest in all of our living rooms as the star of such mega-variety hits as Whose Line is it Anyway?, Let’s Make a Deal, and The Masked Singer. But he has had a couple of experiences recently where he knew that his fame wouldn’t save him, or his daughter, from systemic anti-black racism. He told Access Hollywood the harrowing experience of fearing for his daughter’s safety after she accidentally tripped the house alarm.“A couple years ago — she must have been 14 or 15. We live in Malibu. Her mom lives in Malibu,” he explained via video-chat about his daughter Maile Masako, whom he shares with ex-wife Mandie Taketa. “I wasn't home. She set the alarm off in my house. I freaked out because I was giving her the code and for whatever reason she put it in wrong and it wouldn't accept and then the alarm company [said] we are sending armed response right now.”“I was so worried that my daughter could not explain in the heat of the moment,’'Yes, it's my house,’ " he continued. “I told her, 'Get out of the house and run around the corner and down the street and go to your mom's house!'" When his daughter grew upset at the order, he said he lashed out, “go to your mom's house right now! Stop arguing with me!”[video_embed id='1979037']RELATED: How to talk about anti-Black racism with children[/video_embed]Brady said his fear came from a similar experience years prior where he locked himself out of his former home in Sherman Oaks and couldn’t deactivate the security alarm, and when armed security arrived, he had to prove it was his own house. “The fear that these people would hurt me outside of my own house ... it's not unprecedented,” he said.Recently, there has been calls for the arrest and booking of the police officers who shot and killed frontline worker Breonna Taylor in her own home as she slept. The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on May 25^th has sparked conversations between parents and children about racism and prejudice in society, something that Brady says has allowed him to publicly talk about this incident and the fears that Black people face daily.Brady also recently posted a video to his official Instagram, recounting the experience of having an police cruiser pull up behind him at a red light, and although the cruiser didn’t pull him over, the instinctual fear that welled up inside Brady is something that is drilled into every Black person.

 

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A post shared by Wayne Brady (@mrbradybaby) on Jun 14, 2020 at 10:36am PDT

As for Brady’s daughter Maile, he said the conversations he and her mother have had with her were productive. “We had to have a talk and we had to really talk about this, so now fast forward — she's 17. She's the head of her school's Black student union, she's a little activist and she knows her history. It's a conversation I'm glad I had because every young Black person that we send out in the world, including her boyfriend, I worry about her boyfriend when he drives — we need to arm [them] with knowledge because it's just necessary.”[video_embed id='1978851']BEFORE YOU GO: Body Break’s Hal Johnson reveals racism he experienced in Canada’s media industry[/video_embed]