Brady first appeared on national television as a recurring contestant on the sketch comedy competition
Kwik Witz from 1996 to 1999, appearing most often as partners with Frank Maciel. Brady was one of the
improvisational theater performers in the original (British) version of
Whose Line Is It Anyway?, along with
Ryan Stiles,
Colin Mochrie, and host
Clive Anderson in 1998 when the last season was filmed in Hollywood, after which he became a regular on
the American version, hosted by
Drew Carey. In 2003, Brady won a
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for his work on the show, the only person to win the award for a television series, as opposed to a special, since
Dana Carvey in 1993. He went on to star in his own
ABC variety show in 2001,
The Wayne Brady Show, and a daytime talk show of the same name in 2002, which lasted two seasons and won four
Daytime Emmy Awards, two of which went to Brady for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Brady guest-starred on
The Drew Carey Show in 1999 and 2000 to participate in "
Drew Live" and "
Drew Live II." On the show, Brady played several games taken from
Whose Line Is It Anyway? with other characters. In 2004, Brady joined the
Broadway revival of
Chicago, playing the role of lawyer Billy Flynn. He made a brief appearance in the final episode of the 2004 season of the comedy
Reno 911!. He guest-starred on the
Syfy Channel's hit series
Stargate SG-1 as Trelak, the first prime of
Goa'uld System Lord Ares. He made an appearance on
Dave Chappelle's sketch comedy series, ''
Chappelle's Show'', poking fun at his squeaky-clean persona. Brady co-wrote and sang the theme song for Disney's animated series
The Weekenders. In 2005, he sang and recorded
Jim Brickman's original Disney song "Beautiful" (a cover of
All-4-One's 2002 hit "Beautiful As You") and its Christmas version. In 2006, Brady became the host of
TV Land's ''That's What I'm Talking About
, a talk show discussing the role of African-Americans in the entertainment industry. From August 29 to September 29, 2006, Brady hosted the Fox show Celebrity Duets''. Brady made several guest appearances on the CBS sitcom
How I Met Your Mother, playing James Stinson, the gay brother of
Neil Patrick Harris's character,
Barney Stinson. Brady has also appeared as a guest star for the MTV show ''
Wild 'n Out and lent his voice to the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken. Brady guest-starred in the CBC comedy Getting Along Famously alongside his Whose Line is It Anyway?'' costar
Colin Mochrie. He appeared on the episode "You Don't Know Jack" of the television show
Dirt and guest-starred on
30 Rock as Steven Black, Liz Lemon's date for the Source Awards. He co-hosted the short-lived
VH1 show
Vinyl Justice in 1998. In 2007, he starred in the
ABC Family film
The List. He starred in
Flirt, a comedy pilot that was not picked up by the network. Brady guest-starred as
Julius Rock's gifted younger brother, Louis, in the sitcom
Everybody Hates Chris, and hosted a singing game show called ''
Don't Forget the Lyrics!'' on
Fox until its cancellation in June 2009. He performed "Wayne Brady: Making $%!^ Up" at the
Venetian Hotel in
Las Vegas, Nevada four nights a week. He appeared on two episodes of
Kevin Hill. Brady's debut album was released on September 16, 2008. Brady's version of
Sam Cooke's "
A Change is Gonna Come" earned him a
Grammy Award nomination in the
Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance category. Brady started hosting an updated version of the game show ''
Let's Make a Deal for CBS in October 2009, which taped at the Tropicana Resort and Casino in Las Vegas and currently tapes in Los Angeles. The show replaced the soap opera Guiding Light, which ended its long run. The original host of Let's Make a Deal
was Monty Hall, who served as consultant for the new show until his death in 2017. Drew Carey currently hosts The Price Is Right, and thus, both game shows in the CBS daytime lineup (as of September 2019) hold the distinction of being hosted by an alumnus of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Brady was the guest host on the May 3, 2010, episode of WWE Raw'', where he was involved in an in-ring segment with
Edge and
Randy Orton, eventually getting RKO'd by Orton. Later that year, in August, Brady played Tom Collins in a staged production of
Rent at the
Hollywood Bowl. The production was directed by Neil Patrick Harris. Brady appeared alongside ''Let's Make a Deal
announcer Jonathan Mangum in two episodes of Fast and Loose, an improvisational series on BBC2 hosted by Hugh Dennis, in January 2011. Then, with Holly Robinson Peete, he co-hosted the 42nd annual NAACP Image Awards on March 4, 2011. On May 3, 2011, he appeared on Dancing with the Stars'' as the lead performer in a tribute to
James Brown, celebrating what would have been Brown's 78th birthday in the Macy's Stars of Dance segment. He has also been a special guest of ''
Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza'' on
GSN. Brady made a cameo in the 2011 song "Dedication To My Ex (Miss That)" by
Lloyd featuring
Lil Wayne and
André 3000, narrating Lil Wayne's section of the song. He appeared as a special guest star in the March 14, 2012, episode of the TV series
Psych. Brady starred in the 2012 ABC improvisational comedy series
Trust Us with Your Life and returned for
The CW's revival of
Whose Line Is It Anyway? in the summer of 2013. Brady guest-starred as Don in the
Phineas and Ferb episode "Where's Pinky?" on June 7, 2013, and from February 9 to 13, 2015,
guest-hosted The Late Late Show on CBS. In November 2015, Brady replaced
Billy Porter as Lola in
Kinky Boots on Broadway until March 2016. Brady assumed the lead role of
Aaron Burr in the
PrivateBank Theatre production of
Hamilton in Chicago from January 17 to April 9, 2017. In 2018, Brady began a recurring role in the sci-fi drama
Colony as Everett Kynes, the administrator of the Seattle colony and creator of an algorithm used in sorting and identifying people. On April 29, 2018, Brady won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host for ''Let's Make A Deal
for the first time, after seven previous nominations. In November 2018, Brady began making appearances as Dr. Reese Buckingham on The Bold and the Beautiful. On October 10, 2019, he was featured in a 30-minute YouTube documentary created by SoulPancake in collaboration with Funny or Die wherein a variety of comedians discuss mental health called Laughing Matters.
On December 18, 2019, Brady competed on season two of The Masked Singer'' as "Fox." He was named the winner of that season. Beginning in 2020, Brady plays a major recurring role during the
third season of
The CW superhero drama series
Black Lightning features the
DC Comics character
Tyson Sykes / Gravedigger. It was also announced that he had created a reality competition show to air on
BYU TV called ''Wayne Brady's Comedy IQ
, in which teens would be taught skills and compete in weekly challenges. Brady later appeared as a guest panelist in season four of The Masked Singer'' where he also sang
Maroon 5's "
Memories" as "Mr. TV" at the start of the sixth episode. On December 28, 2020, it was announced that Brady would star as Django in a benefit concert presentation of
Ratatouille the Musical, an
internet meme that originated on
TikTok, inspired by the 2007
Disney/
Pixar film. The concert streamed exclusively on
TodayTix on January 1, 2021, and raised over $1 million for The Actors Fund. On September 8, 2022, Brady was announced as a contestant on
season 31 of
Dancing with the Stars. He was partnered with
Witney Carson and they finished in 3rd place. The following year, Brady appeared as a guest in the second season of "
Make Some Noise," a comedy game show hosted by
Dropout.tv. In March 2025, Brady launched a podcast with
Jonathan Mangum called ''Wayne Brady's What If with Jonathan Mangum''. In September 2025, Brady joined a line-up of comedians, including Dave Chappelle, slated to participate in the
Riyadh Comedy Festival, an event hosted in
Riyadh, the capital city of
Saudi Arabia. The festival was criticized by
Human Rights Watch, which characterized the event as an attempt by the Saudi government to
whitewash its
human rights abuses. == Personal life ==