Marlon Wayans Says Transgender Child Kai Is the ‘Same’ as ‘They Were Before’: ‘They Just Have a Beard Now’

Marlon Wayans is opening up about his transgender child Kai, and his own journey toward “beautiful, magical” acceptance.

The actor and comedian talked about his oldest child on The Jennifer Hudson Show Tuesday, Sept. 17, saying that Kai is “the same child they was before — they just got a beard now. Okay! Same baby.”

Right before that, host Jennifer Hudson asked her guest what he has learned most about himself through the experience of learning Kai was trans.

“I learned that I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was,” said Wayans, 52. “I learned that my family — my brothers, my sisters — have prepared me to be a rock in our family.”

Hudson, 43, also called “the support” that Wayans has been giving Kai “amazing,” and asked him what the journey has been like.

“Those are my babies,” said the father of three, who is also dad to son Shawn, 22, and daughter Axl, 21 months, “I went through the five stages of grief to get to the beautiful, magical place called acceptance.”

Wayans has also faced the challenges of his losing his parents in recent years, with his mother Elvira Alethia dying at age 81 in July 2020, while his father Howell Stouten died at age 86 in April 2023.

“All this was happening to me at one time, and then it was just like this universal thing: acceptance,” Wayans told Hudson. “And once you accept, you release, give yourself to God and then everything is all right. It’s better, actually.”

Wayans’ interview comes three months after he premiered his special Good Grief. It marked his fourth special amid a fairly recent foray into standup, with most of his sets based on personal experiences, like his journey to understand and embrace Kai amid their transgender journey.

Speaking to PEOPLE ahead of the release of Good Grief, Wayans said he was “very vulnerable nowadays onstage,” admitting, “I don’t know why it took me so long to do standup. Now I can’t stop.”
Of comedy, the White Chicks star continued, “That’s my therapy. Life happens, and I go, ‘What’s funny about it?’ I’m literally trying to rescue myself.”

Wayans also said he went through his own transition “from defiance to acceptance. It took me all of a week, and in that week I grew the most that I ever did in my life.”

“You understand the purpose of kids and the beauty of unconditional love,” he added. “At the end of the day, in my heart, only thing that matters to me is that my child is happy.”

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