Why ‘The Masked Singer’s Lips Expected Those Panelists to Guess Right

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 4, Episode 5 of The Masked Singer, “The Group C Premiere — Masked But Not Least.”]

After taking a week off due to the World Series, The Masked Singer Season 4 debuted Group C: Broccoli, Squiggly Monster, Jellyfish, Lips, and Mushroom.

But for one of them, there was only so much that could be said (or rather, sung) to keep her around in the competition: Lips was unmasked and revealed to be talk show host Wendy Williams.

“It’s one of my favorite songs, and it’s one of the songs I know almost every word to,” she tells TV Insider of singing Odyssey’s “Native New Yorker.” “I listen to it at least once a week, loud, and I’m here in New York and the Lips matched the sass of the song.”

Here, Williams discusses her time on the show and why she wasn’t surprised by the panelists who guessed right (Jenny McCarthy and Nicole Scherzinger).

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How did you doing this season come about?

Wendy Williams: When The Masked Singer called — I’d been a fan of the show since it came on — I just said yes. They sent a few pictures of potential costumes they would want me to wear and then they asked me what are the songs I’d like to sing, and everything matched and away I went to L.A. During that time, our show was still quarantining, so it really worked where I had a full seven days out in L.A. to do this. And nobody on my staff or crew, nobody at the show, to this day, knows that I did [The Masked Singer].

You mentioned they sent you pictures of a few costumes. Lips just jumped out at you?

Yeah, Lips was the one because that looks sexy. … This is my one time to be on The Masked Singer. I’ve got very long legs and very long arms and I know the song I want to sing, and when I got out to L.A., they’d already had the costume, but there was a lot of fitting.

(Michael Becker/FOX)

The way they did that was just watching me on TV, trying to figure out my measurements until they couldn’t do that anymore, so they called the wardrobe department at my talk show and they spoke to my wardrobe stylist but they acted like they were a company from Paris wanting to make me a dress and they just needed my accurate, present measurements.

What was the biggest challenge of that costume?

It was hot under there. There was a thick mesh thing that I’m looking through. But even with that, because of the lighting they have, you can still kind of see and you might say, “it’s a Black woman,” and so they put one of those ski mask things on me, so I had a mask on and then put the costume on. So many layers. The challenge was to just breathe.

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Your vision must have also been limited as well, right?

Yes! I said, “Wait, I know the words, but all of a sudden, I’m forgetting some of the words because I’m here on The Masked Singer, on the big stage by myself. Can I wear readers? Can you all make the font a little bigger there on the prompter?” Every day, there was a rehearsal. And rehearsals were long, they were really long and sweaty. It was like 103 degrees.

What did you think of the panelists’ guesses?

I knew that Jenny and Nicole would know. I knew Jenny, who has a big mouth in a good way, would say it, and Nicole might have hedged her bet and said somebody else. Robin [Thicke] said somebody else, but Robin’s been on my show. Robin and I have known each other for years. And Ken [Jeong], I didn’t know Ken, so he went through his whole what he does when he’s guessing, riffs and runs. But [host] Nick [Cannon] knew who I was right away.

(Michael Becker/FOX)

What are you going to take away from this whole experience?

Fun. Another thing accomplished. It wasn’t necessary, but I did it. We made the time. I had the fun. I was also frightened. I’m not scared to conquer my fears.

The Masked Singer, Wednesdays, 8/7c, Fox