Marlon Wayans Slams Elon Musk for Not Accepting His Transgender Daughter: ‘Love Your Child’

“I don’t like what he be saying about his trans child, that made me mad,” Wayans said on a recent episode of ‘Club Shay Shay’

Marlon Wayans (left) and Elon Musk (right). Photo: Jason Mendez/Getty; Taylor Hill/Getty

Marlon Wayans has an issue with the way Elon Musk speaks about his transgender child.

On a recent episode of the podcast Club Shay Shay, hosted by Shannon Sharpe, Wayans opened up about his child, Kai, coming out as transgender. Reflecting on his process of acceptance, Wayans said it is hard for him to hear Musk’s comments disproving his own transgender daughter, 22-year-old Vivian Wilson.

“I have a Tesla that I’m about to drive off a cliff,” he joked. “I don’t like what he be saying about his trans child, that made me mad. You don’t treat them babies like that. You don’t disown your baby.”

He added: “Love your child!”

The comedian, 52, admitted that he had to take time to “grieve” who he thought his child was but it didn’t take long to reach a point of acceptance.

“For one week I was resistant, and I’m not proud of the things that I went through but I’m proud that I got there in a week,” he shared. “I’m sad to say some parents and some family members and some people — it’ll take them a lifetime, and they’ll never get to that magical place that I’m at.”

Marlon Wayans (left) and Elon Musk (right).Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic; Marc Piasecki/Getty

Looking back, the actor said he can remember signs that Kai, 24, was “different.” He recalled his child talking about girls in their class often, and when they got older, they confessed they actually had a crush on those girls.

“I look at pictures of her when she’s little on Google, and she’s always had a secret,” he said. “Her mother saw it more than I did, so I think that’s why the transition was harder on me, because I was the last to know.”

Wayans said he has learned the true definition of “unconditional love” from his child’s transition. As a father of three kids — one he only recently welcomed with ex Brittany Moreland — he said he has grown in his mindset of what it means to be a parent.

“Kai broke me,” he explained. “Kai broke my ego. Kai broke the thing where I was like, ‘You got to be this and you got to be that.’ Hey man, I ain’t got to be nothing. Whatever y’all want, I just got to be a father, and I got to love you and I hope I’m an example and I hope you feel loved, but I want you to be happy.”

Kai Wayans (left) and Marlon Wayans (Right.JC Olivera/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty

Musk hasn’t spoken about his daughter in recent months, but in the past, he claimed he was “tricked” into allowing Wilson to undergo transgender-related medical treatment when she was 16.

“I lost my son, essentially,” he said during a sitdown with psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson that was streamed on his platform X (formerly Twitter) in July. “They call it ‘deadnaming’ for a reason. The reason they call it ‘deadnaming’ is because your son is dead.”

Wilson, who legally filed to change her name and gender in 2022 when she turned 18, called these allegations a “lie” in an interview with NBC News just days later.

“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged,” she said. “Which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I’m not just gonna let that slide.”

Elon Musk.Chesnot/Getty

Wilson added that she has not spoken with Musk in four years, noting that even growing up, she saw him “maybe 10% of the time.”

“That’s generous,” she continued. “He had half custody, and he fully was not there. It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don’t think I realized just how abnormal of an experience it was.”

Wilson is one of six children Musk shares with his ex-wife Justine Wilson. The SpaceX founder also shares three children with singer Grimes and three other kids with Shivon Zilis.