Kyle Sandilands hits back at Masked Singer claim

One star has made a big claim about Kyle Sandilands’ Masked Singer stint – but Kyle tells news.com.au it’s not true.

It was one of the biggest shocks of this season of The Masked Singer – especially for judge Jackie O, who seemed completely taken aback when her radio partner of more than 20 years Kyle Sandilands was revealed as Sunday night’s special guest contestant.

Speaking to news.com.au today, Sandilands revealed that the one-episode cameo disguised as Paw Patrol character Rubble was the only way he’d agree to take part in the bizarre singing contest – and hit back at a bold claim he wasn’t actually in his suit during his performance.

Kyle said he “couldn’t care less” about Masked Singer.

“They rang me at the beginning of the season and said ‘You’re the first person we’re asking,’ and I said ‘NO. WAY.’ They said I could name my price, but I just can’t do it – because I couldn’t care less,” he said.

After “some negotiation”, the offer of a single-episode appearance was floated: “I thought, I can definitely pull off one song. Otherwise I was going to be trapped, committed to doing it every week.”

Sandilands also enjoyed some special treatment during his episode – he revealed that there was a gap of “a few hours” between his masked performance of Train’s Drops of Jupiter and his reveal, so he was allowed to leave the set and go home in the interim, rather than wait in his trailer like the other contestants.

Jackie O had no idea her co-host was in there.

But he refuted one claim made during an interview with Masked Singer judge Dave Hughes, who spoke to Fifi, Fev & Nick on 101.9 The Fox today. During the interview, Brendan Fevola claimed that Sandilands hadn’t even been inside the suit for his performance.

Fevola said he’d noticed while watching the show that the figure inside the Paw Patrol suit “got a little bigger” when he returned to the stage to take his mask off.

“I reckon that it wasn’t Kyle Sandilands performing, but when he took his head off it was him! Someone else was in that suit,” Fevola claimed. Hughesy called it a “massive allegation” and said he wasn’t so sure.

Sandilands scoffed at the suggestion someone else stood in for his performance.

“It was definitely me (in the performance), there was no stand-in. Look, whoever was in the suit during the (pre-filmed) clue packages, that wasn’t me.”

Judge for yourself – here they are side-by-side:

Rubbe during his performance …

… and unmasked as Kyle.

For Sandilands, the biggest challenge came with keeping the secret from Jackie O as the pair recorded several hours of live radio each day.

“She’d talk to me about Masked Singer every day, because she was filming at the time, and I’d just sound uninterested – not like a real a**hole, but just not interested. A few times I nearly gave it away – ‘Oh, you’re on golf carts backstage!’ – I’m not allowed to know that. It was just easier for me to not converse with Jackie O at all until she knew,” he said.

“But then we both had to keep it a secret for months; that was harder. It could have spilled out at any stage – she’s much better at secrets than I am.”

Jackie O had picked actor Anthony LaPaglia as the performer before Sandilands was revealed.

“This is the worst you can get, I’m never living this down … this is so embarrassing,” she said after her longtime co-host was unmasked.

NOTE: An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed the allegations about Kyle Sandilands not being in his suit to Dave Hughes, not Brendan Fevola. News.com.au apologises for the error - and as Hughesy pointed out, he stuck up for Kyle!

The Masked Singer continues 7:30pm Monday and Tuesday on Ten.