'We Found a New Family Within Each Other’ (Exclusive): How Wayne Brady, His Ex Wife and Her Partner Make Co-Parenting Work

Not every family can survive a divorce, but Wayne Brady and ex-wife Mandie Taketa have not only weathered their split, they’re thriving as a blended family.

Now, they're letting the world see how they're making it work with their new reality show, Wayne Brady: The Family Remixpremiering on July 24 on Freeform.

"It's important to us to show what a family can look like when you choose each other," Brady tells PEOPLE in this week's issue.

Brady, 52, and Taketa, 48, who married in 1999 and separated five years later, share 21-year-old daughter Maile Brady. After their divorce, the two worked through their differences separately with the help of therapy and eventually became best friends and even business partners in a production company.

“We got healthy together, and we found a new friendship, a new family and a new safety within each other,” Taketa says. “We’re soulmates.”

After the split, Taketa began dating Jason Fordham, one Wayne’s backup dancers, after meeting during Wayne's well-received Las Vegas residency in 2009. The couple welcomed son Sundance in September 2021.

Maile and Fordham, 40, will also be featured in the family-focused new show.

When Fordham first began dating Taketa, to make the adjustment easier on everyone, particularly on Maile, he made it a point to give everyone space. “I would remove myself, especially in the beginning, to foster this support for the bigger picture," he tells PEOPLE.

Fordham says what's really made their blended family work is supporting one another's "strides and development whenever they pop up." Adding, "we are very open and honest with each other."

Today, the foursome, who call themselves the “Core Four,” live eight minutes apart and regularly dine, travel and parent together.

They also often post choreographed dance videos on social media. “Behind each TikTok that people saw was years of therapy,” Wayne says. “Arguing, therapy and tears equal a good dance.”

Wayne and Taketa acknowledge their past experiences being raised in “strict households” influenced the way they brought up Maile, who is now a singer and dancer.

“When we were parenting the first time, so much of both of our childhood traumas played itself out in rules,” he says, adding, “We both come from very authoritarian backgrounds.”

Taketa, who was 26 when she had Maile, says her daughter essentially “watched me grow up.”

“I was still finding myself when I had Maile,” she shares. “There were spankings. I -

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scolded her. The timeouts. I mean, I was strict. My parents were strict. I never talked back to my parents. I was softer with Maile, but I'm sure she talks to her therapist all about my parenting.”

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With Sundance, Taketa and Fordham are very hands-on and do everything together.

"We don't have a team of nannies," Taketa says, adding that she has adopted a "gentle parenting" approach. "It is hard for me, but I see the beauty in that, and I'm like, 'Wow, okay. Your feelings are valid, little child ... You have an opinion.'"

Maile, for her part, doesn’t hesitate to offer parenting advice of her own. “Maile gives good parenting advice now, because she is young enough to also have a memory of all the trauma we caused,” Taketa says. “And so she's able to say, ‘Hey, this messed me up, Mom, Dad.’”

With the passage of time, Wayne says his relationship with Maile has “deepened.”

“I have to get out of the mindset of, ‘This is our baby,’” he shares. “I still trip out over how smart, empathic, what a deep thinker she is, because she's her own person on her own journey. So it's forced me to go, ‘Let me meet you as an adult, and you have your autonomy now — not as your dad who watches every single thing in control.’ ... We can learn from her. Now it's our turn to learn from you.”

Taketa is in agreement. “We empowered this woman to love who she is: the texture of her hair, the color of her skin, her body, everything,” she says, adding, “It's like I want to be more like her. … And I'm proud of us for making it safe for her to do so.”

Fordham, who met Maile when she was 6 years old, knows she needs "different things" from him now. "There's a willingness there, with all four of us, to meet each other in these new stages of our lives," says Fordham. "We're not the same people when we all met. We continue to strive for the ability to be able to show up for each other."

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Wayne Brady: The Family Remix premieres on July 24 at 10 p.m. ET on Freeform and the next day on Hulu.

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