The Grammy-nominated musician tells EW why he did The Masked Dancer instead of The Masked Singer.
Warning: This article contains spoilers about Wednesday’s episode ofThe Masked Dancer.
The Cricket has hopped away from his time onThe Masked Dancer.
Credit: Michael Becker/ FOX
The princely green insect was hiding none other than17-time Grammy-nominated singerand musicianBrian McKnightunderneath the mask.
And I’m sitting at home going, “What’s going on?”
I have yet to go back and look.
But I thought that’s pretty cool.
Why doThe Masked DanceroverThe Masked Singer?
Well, I’m not sure that any of us can decide which show to be on.
So that’s the one thing.
But it’s funny, when I saw the clue packages, Iknewsomebody was going to get me.
What clue really stuck out to you?
So what went through your mind when you saw the Cricket costume?
He’s the only insect that sings, so it made sense.
You really committed to that character, too.
Tell me about that.
Don’t break character.
You are a cricket; you’re not you.
You’re not even a human.
What would a cricket do?
And that’s what I did.
How did you feel about your performances?
I thought the performances were good.
When we were doing rehearsals, the choreographers were really sticklers about doing things right.
“You have to do this exactly like this, exactly like that.”
I think I hit all of those things that they wanted me to do.
So I felt good about the performances.
I’m not a great dancer.
The win is that you actually got to be on this huge TV show.
The unfortunate part is that somebody has to go home that night.
And tonight it’s me.
During the show you gave a shoutout to your wife.
Has she watched the show?
What does she think?
Actually, she was there with me, but she wasn’t actually able to see what we did.
And she was in there with the random rehearsals to encourage me.
She is my number one supporter, my number one fan, and she is everything to me.
Were you disappointed not to make it to the Super Six?
Yeah, I think it’s only human to be disappointed when you hear your character called.
And I suspected that that would be the case when Paula [Abdul] actually guessed me.
I kind of expected it.
But it’s different when you hear that name.
And it’s tricky, isn’t it?
Like, oh, man, I’m not sure that I could disguise my face, my disappointment.
I’ll see tonight.
Hopefully they didn’t show it in the edit.
So that’s a huge win.
What did you take away from this experience?
That being uncomfortable and doing something that you don’t necessarily do is not a bad thing.
I think that’s a lesson for life.
I don’t want to do this.
I’m just gonna go back to doing my normal thing."
But that’s just not the kind of person I am.
And again, my wife would never let me be that way.
I’m not a quitter in any way.
So it was great to do something that I wouldn’t normally do.
And there’s no way I would do that without a mask on, so it was great.
