Wayne Brady recalls emotional moment with Robin Williams, shares how his 'hero' helped him step into his truth

"If someone who brought so much light and love could leave us and suffer in silence, then I didn't want to suffer in silence anymore."

Wayne Brady is looking back on his friendship with Robin Williams and how the comedian's death set him down a path of self-discovery.

"I've been a fan of his since I was a child — of his imagination, of his love of life, of the spark that came into his eye whenever he created," Brady tells Entertainment Weekly as part of an upcoming interview about his forthcoming Freeform reality show, Wayne Brady: The Family Remix (out July 24). "It made me feel like I wanted to know what that feeling was like."

Brady got to show off his comedic chops to his hero when Williams guest starred on a memorable 2000 episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway, but the two had already met years before and would continue to cross paths in the comedy world. "I'm glad that I got a chance in those handful of times to really explain to him what he meant to me as a young actor and as a child."

Related: Wayne Brady comes out as pansexual: 'I had to start learning about myself'

One such encounter even moved Williams to tears. "When I was a very young child, I was always in and out of the hospital," Brady, who was born premature, recalls. "I had issues with my lungs and asthma and a lot of recurring surgeries that needed to happen, so for the first few years of my life, I was no stranger to the military hospital in Orlando."

"There was one time in particular where I had to stay a few days," Brady continues, "and there's nothing scarier for a child than being left alone without your parents in a hospital room when the lights go out." But his grandmother had gifted him a few things to keep him company, including an action figure of Williams' alien Mork in his egg-shaped spacecraft, from the beloved sitcom Mork & Mindy.

"Years later I got a chance to tell him that story and he started to cry and hug me and I hugged him back," Brady says. "That's the cool thing about show business; sometimes you get a chance to meet your heroes."

Related: The Wiz review: Run, don't ease, on down the road to this spectacular revival of the classic musical

In his coming out essay published last year, Brady cited Williams' death in 2014 from suicide as a pivotal moment in his own mental health journey — one that also led to the realization that he identified as pansexual, defined as attraction to a person regardless of sex or gender. "If someone who brought so much light and love could leave us and suffer in silence, then I didn't want to suffer in silence anymore," Brady says.

With his reality show, which is filled with a lot of heart and some surprising revelations, Brady hopes to shine a light on mental health conversations often left in the shadows. "I can use my platform and my family can use our platform to help others who may be in the same place," he says. "A huge mental component comes from the unhappiness and a searching. In sharing my truths, that helps me. By sharing this stuff, I was making myself feel better, and if that can make you feel better [too], then it's a win all the way around.”

The Family Remix premieres July 24 on Freeform and streams the next day on Hulu. Check back here for more with Brady in the coming weeks.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.