In this episode of Karamo’s show, host Karamo (Speaker B) facilitates a tense family dialogue involving Leighton, a 51‑year‑old father seeking to rebuild his relationship with his two daughters, Ariana—a Black trans woman—and Mikayla, as well as their mother Bree. The conversation opens with Leighton expressing a desire to have his family back, followed by Karamo’s personal reflection on supporting trans youth. Ariana confronts her father about past misgendering (referring to her as “Isaiah” and a son) and demands genuine acknowledgment of her identity. Leighton apologizes, affirms that Ariana is his daughter, and repeats his commitment, though the daughters express lingering mistrust. Mikayla shares feelings of emotional abandonment and doubts the father’s sincerity, while Bree emphasizes the need for Leighton to own his part, respect both daughters, and stop dismissing their experiences. Karamo repeatedly encourages closeness, validates the daughters’ pain, and urges Leighton to continue apologizing and to give his family time to heal. The segment highlights themes of trans acceptance, parental accountability, family healing, and the dynamics of emotional availability within a Black family context.
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I'm 51 years old and I want my family back.
This guy look and sound just like DMX. Please everyone, welcome Ariana to the show. Oh, stunning! Oh yes, she looked great. First of all, that green on green for me was cute, um, but she looked phenomenal. Yes, ma'am. I didn't know we had a supermodel coming out today. You look gorgeous.
You really do.
Okay, so I just saw that video for the first time of your father. How do you feel about what— Ooh, this was like week 1 of this show, by the way. I can just, I see the things. Oh my gosh. You know, for me, this is also very personal because this is a young trans woman, a Black trans woman that wants support, wants love. And I understand what that's like as a young gay Black man growing up that wanted that same support and love from family members who weren't able to give it to me. So I get it. You wanna be strong. You wanna say that everything's okay, but you also at the end of the day want family to support you. And so even though this young woman is being strong and she's like saying, I got this, at the end of the day, we all still want people to acknowledge us and love us who are biological to us. And so it was important for me to try to support her the best I could. All right, please take a seat for me.
What's going on?
All right, Layton, so he even sound like DMX sitting down. So what's your response to what you heard Ariana say?
I mean, it hurts.
Why does it hurt?
Because they my kid. That's my blood. I mean, I watched them grow up.
It was very sweet to have this father come out immediately and be like, this is my child, I want to make a better relationship, I'm sorry, I love them. You You know, sometimes that's all it takes. I would recommend saying, "Don't wear white socks with dress shoes no more, please." Listen, everybody, don't wear white socks with dress shoes. I know that's not what we're here to talk about, but listen, we can always get a little cute fashion note. Do you accept Ariana as your daughter?
Yeah, I do. She could be a dinosaur, whatever, I still, that's my child. That's mines. Yeah, I do.
Can you tell her that?
I done did it already. I said it.
So you acknowledge me as your daughter, not your son.
Yes, yes, yes I do.
You have two daughters, not one, two.
Yes I do.
Yes.
Okay.
It's the first time you're hearing this? Yeah.
According to my mother, it's, you said acknowledge me as your son. So I mean, I don't know what you do behind my back, but why you think it's to my face?
So you don't believe it when he said that?
I don't, I can't, I'm not gonna say I do and I'm not gonna say I don't. As we sit right here, he said he acknowledges it. So I'm not gonna call him a liar. I'm not gonna say, "No, you don't." Like, he said what he said. Stand on it.
Ariana's little sister, Mikayla, is also here and she sees things very different than her father. Mikayla, please come on out.
Hi.
Can I get a hug?
Nice to meet you.
You too.
Yes. All right, so I see you just walked past your father. So I'm assuming that you don't have a good relationship. She looked good though, she was pretty.
There's not really much of a relationship there. I mean, I don't really feel like I have a father.
One of the things I'll tell you now that I do is I don't really give that much separation between guests because I think that it just visually lets people think as if we're not gonna be able to have a breakthrough, we're too far apart. So I think for me now, I always like make sure that I, keep my couches and my guests together unless it's getting too volatile, then I'll keep them apart. But for the most part, it's like, come on, come together, we can work through this.
So you don't be calling her Isaiah still?
He claims that he never did that and he never deleted the prom picture. He never called me Isaiah. He doesn't recall that, so.
I mean, at the beginning, I probably, I mean, this is a father saying, listen, yes, I made some mistakes in the past, but listen, I've been trying to do better. And so you have to acknowledge growth. I think that's one of the things that we forget is that when people grow, we have to acknowledge their growth, big or small, because he's in a space where he's trying to be there for his kids. They're not seeing him past for what he did in the past. And he's apologized. Did you tell your father about your child?
No.
Why?
What would I be telling you for? I just don't feel like that was something that you needed to know. I mean, If you were present, if you were around, yeah, you would've known about it, but—
But I also see these young women's pain. I see their pain. I see that they're hurt from his past actions. And that's why they're like, we can't trust you. And that's what people have to remember. Sometimes as we're on our own growth journey, that sometimes the people we've hurt can't trust us. And it's gonna take time for them to rebuild the trust, just as it's taken us time to grow. All right, joining us now is Bree. She met Leighton when she was a teenager and they got married. She's telling her side of the story with hopes that Leighton will finally listen to her and their daughters. Welcome everyone, Bree, to the show. How are you doing today?
I'm nice, how are you?
Thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah, please take a seat. So I'm hearing a lot of confusion on Leighton's part. What was your experience?
Layton just was not there. Whether he was physically in our home, he was not mentally, emotionally available.
What do you wanna say to Layton?
I just want you to own your part in this. It's not, you can't be mad at them. Like you have to be accountable for your actions or lack of. I just want you to know to respect Ariana. We just spoke a couple weeks ago when you found out that Makayla was pregnant and you're saying you have one daughter. That's disrespectful. You have two daughters.
That's how we gonna handle it. I said it by a mistake. I didn't say it as in, I'm not used to saying it how y'all saying it. I'm not used to it.
How is it a mistake? She's been Ariana for 7 years.
I'm not there with them. You there with them. I'm not there with them.
You tell me and them that you haven't been in their lives because of me. What have I done that has not allowed you to be in their lives?
Do you encourage your daughters to have a relationship with him?
Absolutely. And I tell them all the time, like, they say they don't have a dad, they don't have a father, and I make it perfectly clear to them.
I mean, this father was really trying to do all that he could at this moment. I felt in the moment like I wanted to make sure the young women had a chance to express how they feel so they could be heard. But I also saw the father was really trying to say, I'm acknowledging, I'm gonna apologize.
I've tried, just not for lack of effort. I have tried, like.
All right, Layton. So I wanna hear your perspective because I'm hearing a constant from 3 people and I'm not trying to say that you're lying, but there's an inconsistency with what you're experiencing and what 3 different people are experiencing. They're all saying they experienced the same thing. You were not there. You're emotionally unavailable. You were physically unavailable. You just were not there. So they don't know you. They don't have a relationship with you.
Listen here, I got it perfectly clear now. I know for sure now, trust me.
So what do you wanna do to rectify that? Because you said you want your family back. Can you look at your family and say, "I'm sorry"?
I'm sorry and I apologize.
If we're gonna do anything today on this stage, please be for real.
I really actually believe this family is going to be able to heal and I hope that they actually do open their hearts to let him back in because I do believe that this is a family that could truly Be stronger together. Dad made a lot of mistakes, but he's trying. And I mean, he has two young, beautiful daughters, and I just hope that he sees them and loves them and really treats them the way they deserve to be treated. But I also hope that he gets some respect as well. So what do you want him to say? He just said, "I'm sorry and I apologize." What do you want? Tell him.
Me personally, I want you to understand how you made me feel.
If you are going to be in our lives and try to make a relationship, You need to prove your acceptance of Ariana and not be calling her Isaiah and referring to her as your son and just stop blaming everybody else.
And Bree, what do you need?
To piggyback off of Makayla, I just need you to accept that or just respect the fact that you have two beautiful daughters. Like, you know, for me as a mother, like I adore her, I have the utmost respect for her and I just wish Everybody would, and I get that it's not for everybody, but that's your child.
For me, it's always about people who usually don't have a voice being able to come on my show and know that their voice would be heard, know that they will be respected, and know that they're not gonna ever be treated in a way that's gonna make them feel worse than how they feel. At the end of the day, this is a family that's hurting, but you all have stuck together and bonded and started to heal each other. Leighton, I do believe honestly from today, and I will say this, I didn't know anything about you beforehand. I didn't know who you were. I didn't know how you were gonna react out here. I truly do believe in my heart of hearts and in my professional opinion that you wanna do better and wanna be here for your children. I do. I truly do believe that. But I believe that it's also very hard for you to hear all of these things and the pain you caused.
Yes, yes, it is, it is.
And it can feel like this is a never-ending cycle where you're always the bad guy. But the truth of the matter is, is that you won't always be the bad guy if you do one thing, and that's just own anything they say. The thing of the matter is you've already started doing that right now. You've already said, "I accept you as my daughter. I'm sorry that I wasn't here for you. I'm sorry that I did this." But what they're telling you is that it's not enough. So what you have to do right now is you have to tell your family that I'm willing to go on the journey of taking however long you all need to heal.
I could be here, I could wait for y'all to give me time. I mean, just forgive me. I apologize. It hurts me and everything, and I know it hurts y'all, and I'm sorry.
I think that's a big step. He clearly is letting y'all know he's not perfect. So if he's saying I'm sorry, you gotta give him a chance to believe it. If he says I accept you, you gotta give him a chance to believe you. He does something different, call him out. Look at how they look. This is, my guests are cute. Listen, anybody who comes on the Karamo Show knows to come in a cute outfit because, you know, just because you're dealing with your pain and trying to heal don't mean you can't look good while you're doing it. Hold up, hold up. Where are you going? I know you wanna watch more Karamo, so click here to subscribe and click here to watch more so we can keep talking and growing, friends. I love you.
