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Marlon Wayans revealed that one of his kids, Kai, is transgender during an interview on The Breakfast Club last week.
The comedian said he’s working on an upcoming stand-up special, titled either Skittles or Rainbow Child, about his reaction to Kai’s coming out and transition. “I have a daughter that transitioned into a son,” Wayans said. “My daughter Amai is now Kai, and so, I talk about the transition. Not her, his… their transition, but my transition as a parent, going from ignorance and denial to complete unconditional love and acceptance.”
Wayans admitted that, at first, Kai’s transition was “a very painful situation for me,” and during the interview showed he’s still figuring some stuff out. He occasionally mixed-up Kai’s pronouns, and at one point said, “They let me… they know. They know I love her and they see me trying and that I’m happy. It just fucks me up when I say ‘they,’ I’m like, there’s two of you? But I gotta respect their wishes.”
Wayans continued: “I just want my kids to be free. I want them to be free in spirit, free in thought, free to be themselves. The more you know yourself, the more you can govern yourself; the more you live your truth, the happier your existence. So, if they can’t get that in the household with their father and their mother, who the fuck do I send them out into the world with that kind of confidence? And I’m just so proud of them for being them. But that don’t mean that they ain’t got jokes!”
To that end, Wayans said that Kai was fully aware of the jokes in his new stand-up special. Wayans also spoke about recently performing the set at a special show for some entertainment bigwigs (and, apparently, some global and military leaders as well).
“It was that big of a crowd, and I felt like, I want to do this set right here because it’s important to me. What’s important to me? Comedy. What’s important to me? My children, who I love. And what’s important? Is change. And so all you world leaders that’s having this summit, I want you to think about these people, and this synapse, and how to be inclusive of this next generation. Because, I see a lot of gray hair here, but these kids that we’re dealing with, they’re different, and we can’t have our old ways and expect to do new things.”
