“The Masked Dancer,” a spinoff series to wildly popular “The Masked Singer” that features (as the name suggests) celebrities performing dance routines while sporting masks, made its cable debut in December 2020, introducing viewers to 10 contestants split into two groups.
Group A featured celebs disguised as characters named Hammerhead, Tulip, Cricket, Disco Ball and Exotic Bird. Group B’s contestants include Sloth, Ice Cube, Zebra, Cotton Candy and Moth.
At the end of each episode, one dancer gets voted off the show and their identity is revealed. As of Jan. 28, five contestants’ identities have been revealed and five dancers remain. Let’s take a look at everyone who’s been unmasked so far.
Week 1, Dec. 27
Disco Ball, who performed a routine to Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk,” was revealed to be the famous hip hop musician-turned-actor Ice T.
In an interview with Variety, the multi-hyphenate discusses how difficult it was for him to dance while wearing a disco ball on his head. He said, “You could really fall real easy with this big costume on. So I went from trying to really dance hard to just kind of walking it out and just trying not to fall. Because now when you fall on national television, you become a meme. You’ll be falling for the rest of your life!”
Week 2, Jan. 6
At the end of the second episode of “The Masked Dancer,” the dancer known as Ice Cube (not the rapper) was voted out. The man under the frozen mask was revealed to be none other than Bill Nye, the Emmy-winning science guy.
Nye commented on his icy costume in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He said, “The melting ice head had a climate change vibe. The coat or whatever you’d call it, the jacket, was reminiscent of a lab coat.”
Week 3, Jan. 13
As previously reported by the Deseret News, Moth, the third contestant eliminated from “The Masked Dancer,” was revealed to be Elizabeth Smart, the bestselling author who was the subject of a national attention after she was abducted from her Utah home in 2002.
After her identity was revealed, the show’s host Craig Robinson asked Smart why she decided to participate in “The Masked Dancer.”
“My grandma actually passed away very recently, but she was so much fun,” Smart replied. “She never let a moment pass her by. And so, when this opportunity came along, I thought, ‘I live a pretty serious life, and I’m going to take this opportunity and just have fun.’”
Week 4, Jan. 20
Cricket, the fourth contestant to be eliminated from “The Masked Dancer” was Brian McKnight, the Grammy-nominated singer most notably known for chart-topping R&B single “Back at One.”
In a recent conversation with People, McKnight shared his feeling about his experience on “The Masked Dancer.” He said, “I got to be in the public’s eye again in this magnitude, which I hadn’t been in quite some time, so I’m really grateful for the opportunity.”
Week 5, Jan. 27
The most recent celebrity to be unmasked was Vinny Guadagnino, one of the central figures in MTV’s hit reality TV series from the early 2010s, “Jersey Shore.”
In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Guadagnino shared his disappointment in not advancing the show’s semifinals. “I was distraught,” he said. “When I first did this, I didn’t think I was gonna make it past that first week. And then I fell in love with the whole process and the show, and I just wanted to keep going.”
The identities of the final five contestants will be revealed in the upcoming weeks as the show approaches its season finale.