‘The Masked Dancer': Cricket Was Flattered by All of Those (Totally Incorrect) Swimmer Identity Guesses
(Warning: This post contains spoilers for Wednesday’s “The Masked Dancer.”)
The Cricket contestant was bumped off “The Masked Dancer” Wednesday and revealed to be singer-songwriter Brian McKnight. But before his unmasking, McKnight — who is the fourth celeb to be eliminated from “The Masked Singer” spinoff series’ debut season — was assumed by the judges (with the exception of Paula Abdul) to be multiple other stars, including some very physically fit ones.
“I think sometimes they are looking at height and build, and it was kind of flattering, on the one hand, for somebody to think that I was Ryan Reynolds or that I was a swimmer,” the “Back at One” singer told TheWrap. “It’s not too bad at 51 years old to be thought of as people that the general public think are the most fit, the best-looking people in the world. I was actually flattered by that.”
In his final episode of “The Masked Dancer,” the judges guessed McKnight’s Cricket was Ryan Lochte, Michael Phelps or Ashton Kutcher, and in the weeks before, they had said he could be Ryan Reynolds, Jim Carrey or Ian Ziering. It was only Abdul who hit the nail on the head with her McKnight guess tonight.
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“When we did the rehearsal and I saw my clues and heard my clues, it was pretty obvious at that point — to me — that somebody could guess who I was,” McKnight said. “And it makes sense that Paula would be the one to get it, kinda being from the same world with music and dance. And I knew that she was a fan as well. So when she said it, I was kinda like, ‘Yeah, that’s OK’ (laughs).”
The “Love of My Life” singer admitted he was initially confused about why Fox asked him to do “The Masked Dancer” rather than its parent series, given his background.
“But my voice is pretty distinct and it would be tough for me to be on there and not have people know that it’s me. So that’s what we kind of mutually thought of,” McKnight said. “This show seemed to be the one that it would be much more difficult for people to guess who I was.”
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Unfortunately, Abdul still got him. So what advice does McKnight have for any singer who gets the chance to pick between competing on either “The Masked Dancer” or “The Masked Singer”?
“I guess it depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to win and to have nobody know who you are, then yes, ‘Dancer’ is probably the better route for the singer,” he said. “Just to throw people off. Even though it didn’t work in my case (laughs). But I would say that would probably be the route.”
“The Masked Dancer” airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Fox.
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