LiLo is trolling us on Masked Singer
The Masked Singer is the surprise TV hit none of us saw coming — but Cameron Adams wonders whether guest judge Lindsay Lohan is trolling the audience with her ridiculous guesses.
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The other guessing game on the Masked Singer — which improbable celebrity is Lindsay Lohan going to claim is going incognito next?
Last night Lindsay Lohan was paid handsomely to tell Australia she genuinely believed Stevie Nicks was singing Proud Mary dressed in a unicorn suit.
That’d be 71 year old dual Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stevie Nicks, worth over $100 million, who is spending the year playing sold out shows around the world with her band Fleetwood Mac. Plus she was touring overseas when this TV show was filmed a few months ago in Sydney. Plus, just, no.
Everyone from Beyonce to Sia, Shakira to Shania Twain, Keith Urban to Conor McGregor, Usher to Bruno Mars, Serena Williams to Rhonda Rousey, Angus Young to Ed Sheeran has been spat out like, straight-faced, by the judges, sorry, guessing panel as the people who just sang in front of them under a mask. Please.
The wackiest guesses have come from Li-Lo. Come on. No.
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Channel 10 probably dropped high six figures to get Lindsay Lohan to Australia to have celebrity Tourettes on screen.
She knows what it would cost to lure an international A-lister to Australia and is maybe just trolling us with improbable celebrity names because she has no idea who Nikki Webster and Millsy are — the problem people flagged from the day she was announced for the show’s panel.
Mind you a lot of Australian viewers probably wouldn’t recognise a Deni Hines or a Jade MacRae should they be under a mask, so how would Lohan be expected to know them?
So far there’s been none of the “Lindsanity” that saw her career get to the point where, well, she’s available to come and be on the guessing panel of the Masked Singer and not still getting A-list movie roles.
Before the show started we were told Lohan personally knew four of the singers, which suggests there’s possibly a few internationals.
But have Channel 10 spent all their budget on her?
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Because let’s face it, there’s a level of celebrity who do not have the time or inclination to appear on this show. And they’re generally the calibre of people Lohan guesses. Channel 10 wouldn’t even bother making the call to their agents.
For some perspective, the first US series featured 90210 actor Tori Spelling, talk show host Ricki Lake, Michael Jackson’s sister La Toya Jackson, Rumer Willis (daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis), ’70s singer Donny Osmond, comedian Margaret Cho, Joey Fatone of ‘N Sync and iconic soul singer Gladys Knight as well as US sport stars. The first series was won by autotune-loving musician T Pain. This year’s unmasked celebs so far have been figure skater Johnny Weir and ‘gamer’ Twitch.
Some of these people are no strangers to reality TV. And of course, being filmed in America gives the US series a massive supply of famous and famous-ish names ready to whack a mask on if it means getting some TV exposure (and quick cash).
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Ryan Reynolds popped up on the Korean King of Mask Singer in 2016 (that’s the mothership show that launched the global franchise) but it was a one-off piss-take the A-lister did while in the country to promote Deadpool.
Dannii Minogue is the only panellist making sensible guesses — and actually listening to the singing voices (a dead giveaway if they’re actually singers).
The show gives a mixture of cryptic clues and clues so obvious they’re designed to throw people off the scent.
Maybe Lindsay ripped up the cheat sheet of Aussie celebrities someone printed off from Wikipedia for her (has anyone ever called Jimmy Barnes’ daughter Mahalia Violet Barnes in public?) and is just working through her own list of unlikely superstar names just to keep herself amused?
Maybe she’s decided to do a Trojan Horse and troll her own show from within?
Cameron Adams is a News Corp national music writer.