Power couple Dwyane Wade and his wife, actress Gabrielle Union, have never been shy about speaking out against people who have anything to say about their gay son, Zion Malachi Airamis. He has been taking a bunch of criticism over the past few months due to certain social media posts that have him depicted as a girl and not as a boy.
Wade, in fact, said Wednesday on the Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson Showtime podcast All the Smoke that it was his 12-year-old who taught him about acceptance and maturity.
“You want to talk about strength and courage,” the 37-year-old former Miami Heat guard asked the hosts. “My 12-year-old son has way more than I have.”
Wade added, “You can learn something from your kids.”
The former Miami Heat legend also spoke about knowing that his son was different at the tender age of 3.
“I had to look myself in the mirror when my son at the time was 3 years old and me and my wife started having conversations about us noticing that he wasn’t on the boy vibe that Zaire [Wade’s other son] was on,” Wade said.
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“And, I had to look myself in the mirror and say, ‘What if your son come home and tell you he’s gay? What are you going to do? How are you going to be? How are you going to act? It ain’t about him. He knows who he is. It’s about you. Who are you?'”
The 37-year-old told Barnes and Jackson he grew up “ignorant” and had to lean on his wife to open his eyes.
“I grew up with the same perspective as a lot of these people out here that’s a little ignorant. I grew up with a similar perspective,” Wade says. “And, you meet people along the way that help you take those glasses off and put on some different ones. Look through life through a different lens. That’s what my wife has been able to do. So, it’s been cool.”
“Everybody get used to it, man,” Wade says. “This is the new normal. So if anybody different, we looked at as different. You know what I’m saying? The ones that don’t understand it. The ones that don’t get it. The ones that are stuck in a box. You’re different. Not the people that are out here living their lives, man.”
