Seven months after coming out, Wayne Brady is opening up about what being pansexual means to him.
“I had to do research and find out what it was that I was,” the comedian and Let’s Make a Deal host told People Magazine while attending this year’s GLAAD Awards on Thursday, March 14.
“I think the biggest misconception [about being pansexual]… is that people think that you’re an indecisive bisexual,” Brady said. “It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. Let me set you straight.”
In the 51-year-old’s words, pansexuality means “that I am happily free to fall in love with anybody here.”
“If you’re gay, if you’re straight, if you’re nonbinary, trans, I don’t care,” he added.
The star’s description of pansexuality tracks with the definition that sex counselor Jay Watts gave Them in 2022.
“Pan means being open to all loving, whether you’re looking at gender or not looking at gender,” Watts said. “It means understanding that romantic, emotional, and potentially sexual attraction is geared towards the energy you’re receiving from individuals.”
Brady is one of several celebrities who have come out as pansexual in the past decade, including Janelle Monáe, Cara Delevingne, Miley Cyrus, and Demi Lovato. Back in August of 2023, he posted one of the more memorable coming-out announcements in recent memory, sharing a TikTok video in which he and his loved ones lip-synced to “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” while dancing and waving rainbow flags.
In an August interview with People Magazine, Brady said that although he’s always had a “wonderful community” of queer loved ones, he felt like a “sham” for not publicly associating with the LGBTQ+ community himself.
“I’ve told myself in the past, also, nobody needs to know my personal business. The world can absolutely go without knowing that Wayne identifies as pan,” he said. “But that gave me license to still live in the shadows and be secretive. What does it feel like to actually not be shameful, to not feel like, ‘Oh, I can’t be part of this conversation because I’m lying?’ I had to break that behavior.”
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