‘Claim to Fame’: Shane Explains Chicken Wing Necklace, True Hollywood Stories & More

[Warning: The following post contains spoilers about Claim to Fame Season 3 Episode 7, “I’m Coming Four You.”]

It took an extra week, but the penultimate episode of Claim to Fame Season 3 was worth the wait. In it, the final wine bottle clue — belonging to Shane — was revealed to the only person who could possibly have understood it: Mackenzie, who won the daily challenge. Only she could determine that that series of emojis (misletoe + firewood + eye + C + turn right + Italy + crown + safety pin + toilet paper roll) meant “Hollywood icon with Italian kingpin role.” And with Hud and his good grip on Hollywood history on her side, she connected the dots to The Godfather.

After that, all of a sudden those disparate clues about Shane’s relative — the valkyrie, Martin Sheen, and Mr. Mumbles — started to fall into place. As it turned out, Shane’s chicken wing necklace was more of red herring because his celebrity relative was his grandfather, the legendary Marlon Brando.

TV Insider caught up with Shane Brando to talk about his time on the show, how he felt about his co-stars’ impromptu Marlo Brando impressions, and who he really hoped would win.

(Be sure to check out other exit interviews with Bianca Roberts, Gracie Lou Hyland and Jill Kurlfink, Raphael Curtis aka Miguel, Naomi Burns, and Nael Zayas aka Danny.)

I gotta start with the question you’ll probably get a lot, which is: What is the deal with the chicken wing necklace?

Shane Brando: The chicken wing started off as a joke. I only intended on really wearing it one day. But then, it kind of just developed into a character of its own. And after the first day after the talent show and the response that I was getting, I was like, “Man, I think I gotta wear this d*** chicken necklace every day now!” But honestly, it was just a piece that I really like, I wear it to every music festival I go to, and I wore it just to keep me grounded. Let me remind myself that, hey, this is just for fun.  This is not something that I need to take too seriously, you know, and it was just a constant piece of like my sense of humor slash keeps being leveled in the game.

Did it have the additional effect of throwing people off of your identity? 

It did. It was one of those things where people are just constantly questioning, “Is it actually a clue? Is it not a clue? What does it mean? Does it mean anything?” And I would never actually tell anybody exactly where it came from or how I got it or what was the purpose behind it. I was like, “Yeah, this is just my fun little piece.”

Going back to two truths and a lie, what made you decide to go with cousin instead of trying to lie about one of the other categories?

So, I chose cousin because I felt as long as I could keep people out of the age range or just the era in which my grandpa was around, I felt like that would be a lot easier to throw people off than if I were to give them like, “Yes, he is my grandfather and an actor or an athlete who won an Oscar.” Because then — what I realized, too, especially with the two truths and a lie, it’s kind of easy to pick on, pick up on which one is a lie because it’s like only two of them are gonna kind of go with each other. Whether it’s the profession and the award or the age range because, I mean, I was pretty easy to pick up that Danny was not gonna be a wrestler. But like little things like that. So I felt like as long as I kept it a little bit more vague in the sense of like the age range then they could still think it’s my mother, my, it could be male, female. They don’t know if it’s actually my brother or sister, my cousin or uncle, dad — so it was just so vague that I feel like that was probably the best gameplay I could make at that time.

Yeah, that makes sense. What was your reaction when Bianca guessed that you were related to Forest Whitaker?

Internally I was kind of laughing a little bit. I also felt like — I have much love for Forrest Whitaker, but I felt a little bit disrespected because I was like, “Man, do I really look like Forrest Whitaker?!” But then I see all these comments online before the show airs and they’re like, “Yeah, for sure. Forrest Whitaker.” So it was pretty funny. But I still have mad love for Bianca. We’ve been talking, too.

You had to use a little bit of acting skills this season to pull off your little ploy with Miguel. Does that come naturally? Did you inherit that family trait?

I mean, I am studied a little bit. But I do think it is a family trait in the sense that my dad is very similar. My sister is kind of the same way. And then also in just generally in life, I’ve been in higher-end positions where I’ve had plenty of people working underneath me. So it’s like I’ve got in my daily life, I’m constantly working different avenues. My grandpa always said this, especially when it came to acting: “You have to say what you want in order to get what you want from the person that you’re talking to.” So, if I wanted a certain outcome, I knew there was a certain way I had to say things or phrase them.

So I learned early on that, especially in this house that really benefited me that I would have to say or do something in order to get the response that I wanted to for my castmates. So I think that doesn’t necessarily come naturally, but it is something that I have been taking to heart and really been working on and I think really helped me while I was in the house, for sure.

You said that you had had dinner with Elizabeth Taylor. Was that true? And can you describe it if so?

That was the best thing and easiest thing about being on the show; every single story that I told was absolutely true. I had no reason to lie about anything. I didn’t have to do anything, to throw anything anybody off because I knew all my life stories, everything that I have done, even if my grandpa was included. If I just left him out, it’s still a great story. Still true, but actually doesn’t have any direct connection to leading back to my relative. Pretty cool.

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What did you think of people’s Marlon Brando impressions?

I think they’ve got some work to do. Not everybody has to get – I mean, I am never good at it. I did watch the show The Offer on Paramount. The guy that played my grandfather actually did a very good job.

Oh, high phrase. Adam said that you were throwing out Leonardo Dicaprio clues. Did you mean to do that?

It was very easy… With Adam, I could literally say anything. I can go and give him anything and he would just run with it. I mean, honestly, I was probably the reason why he was stuck on Randy Jackson for Dedrick because I was like, “That’s my guy. I have his clue in my back pocket. Let me just keep on feeling him out.” Like, I spent so many hours where I was at the wall with Adam. I’m like, “Look, this is why it’s Randy Jackson, you got the microphone, you got the beats, he was a producer, you got the headphones as well.”

So like he was so stuck on that, so it was almost like “All right.” So as long as I could, I just had to point out stuff to Adam to where he would believe me like confidently and then he would just go off on his own, make it his own thing.

Who were you rooting for to win after you left?

Honestly, it’s tough to say anything honestly. Hud or Mackenzie. I wouldn’t be mad at it. To be honest, Mackenzie’s been playing her game. She surprised the hell out of me. She was like — she’s a, she’s a sneaky little girl, but amazing. So her gameplay is fire. I cannot hate on it. She did her thing.

I still can’t wait to — I haven’t seen the episode yet, but I can’t wait to see how they broke down the clue because I was, when I first saw it, when she showed it to me, I was just like, “Oh, yeah, there’s no way in hell she’s gonna decipher this. I don’t even know what the hell this means.” And then she’s like, “Oh, yeah, it means da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.” And I was like, “Okay, cool. I guess my day is here is done.”

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She fooled you, and you were good at the interrogation and she still managed to pull the wool on you.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. She played a great game. So if Hud or Mackenzie wins, I wouldn’t be totally upset me. My competitive side says, “I didn’t win so no longer does it matter? No.”