Kyle Sandilands Didn’t Hold Back As He Spilled the Tea on The Masked Singer

On Sunday night, The Masked Singer gave viewers not one, but two huge reveals. Not only was international celeb, Macy Gray hiding underneath the mask of Atlantis, but Australia’s very own shock jock Kyle Sandilands surprised the panellists by performing in a Paw Patrol costume.

You would think that his longtime radio wife and judge on The Masked Singer, Jackie ‘O’ Henderson would immediately recognise his distinct voice, but surprisingly, not one person was able to guess that it was Kyle hiding behind the mask.

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After the reveal, it was clear as day Jackie was embarrassed, but in her defence, no one expected Kyle to take part in the entertainment show.

POPSUGAR Australia had the chance to speak to the man himself and find out his motivation behind appearing on the show, and what he was thinking while it all went down.

POPSUGAR Australia: How did you come to be on The Masked Singer?

Kyle Sandilands: Well the head of production at Channel 10 rang me right at the beginning of the year, before they locked in anyone, and said, “I’m asking you first, you’re the first celebrity I’m asking to be on The Masked Singer” and I laughed, and said, “No way in hell! I’m not doing it” and he was like, “Oh, come on you’d be great!” and they normally do the big talk up about how wonderful you are, and all that rubbish, that they lie. And I said: “Look, I just can’t commit, doing the radio show is enough. I’m producing some TV shows and movies. I just don’t have the time to dance and sing like a desperate.”

He laughed and was like, “Oh, okay I might have another idea!”, so he rang back in a few months time and said, “Would you consider a one-off?” And I said, “Yes I would consider, but the money would have to be right.” They try and get you to come on based on, “Oh all your friends are on the panel!” And I don’t give a f**k about them being on the panel, so I’m just like, “no, you gotta pay.” Anyway, they couldn’t afford the fee, because they always put the fee up too high in order to not to have to do anything. Because I’d rather not do anything, ever. Unfortunately, they paid the fee and then I was trapped, so I had to do it. And then once I got there and I got the costume, I could pick a few songs, and they picked the song I didn’t want to do the most. I wanted to do The Business by Tiesto, but couldn’t for whatever reason. Then once I started rehearsing, I thought, “Oh this would be fun!”

Once you’ve committed, you get over the misery of it all, and also I think if I was there every week, I’d get very bored. Because there’s a lot of sitting around and waiting, and trekking and rehearsing and I’m not a big rehearser, as you can probably tell by the lack of rehearsal on the night. But I knew the song pretty well so it was pretty easy, and it was such a thrill to watch Jackie so dumbfounded and gobsmacked. That was the favourite part for me.

PS: Speaking of rehearsing, how long did it take you to learn the entire performance?

KS: Well I just danced myself, I didn’t do any rehearsal. I refused to rehearse because rehearsing is for losers. I just learnt the song — although I knew the song, but then they chopped it down to 90 seconds. And changed the way it was done a bit, so that threw me off a little bit. I was with the musical director for one Zoom session and then I missed the second Zoom session because I was away out on the Great Barrier Reef, and that didn’t go down too well. Then they wanted me to come in early and do one more session, which I refused to do on the day, and said, “We’ll be right.” Then I just got out there and did it, so it is what it is. 

PS: Before getting on stage, did you think everyone would guess who you are immediately?

Yeah, 100%! I thought as soon as I open my mouth, everyone’s going to know. I tried to grapple it up a bit, but once I saw it on TV last night, I was so shocked as to how they didn’t know it. Especially Jackie and Dannii! Like I’ve known Jackie and Dannii nearly my whole life. Urzila, I’ve only known her for about a year or so. Hughesy, I don’t know him really well, but we know each other well enough to have each other’s phone numbers and speak here and there. But I was really shocked that Jackie and Dannii didn’t get it, but I understand when you’re up there and everyone’s yelling and the lights are all on, it gets easy to get caught up in the moment. But I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t get it. 

PS: What was your initial thought when Jackie didn’t guess correctly?

KS: I was thinking, “are you lying? Are you pretending that you don’t know?” And then I realised, oh she’s really got no clue. Absolutely no idea. I think I can tell if she was faking it, but she swears black and blue that she had no idea, and is super embarrassed, and that’s how I knew that she had no real idea. 

PS: On The Kyle and Jackie O Show, Jackie this morning said you’re the worst person at keeping secrets. Was it hard to hide it from her?

KS: Yes, because she talks non-stop, in the lead up to the filming, every day she would be like, “Oh, last night we were there for 17 hours filming” and I would be like, “Oh, alright.” And you want to get into a conversation with her but I know I would be the idiot that would say, “Oh, I love how you don’t see anyone, and there’s all these little tunnels, and there’s all these hidden backstage dressing rooms through material tunnels.” I thought that I’d give it up to her even if I started talking about it or feigning my interest. So I just had to sort of act aloof and not interested in what she was talking about.

So then afterwards, we both had to keep it a secret, which was even harder to keep a secret from everyone at the radio. That was harder once we both knew. Because we filmed it about 2 months ago, so keeping quiet for 2 months with all the staff, that was hard.

PS: You mentioned on the show this morning that you went on after Ten doubled your fee, and it was a one-time appearance. Would there be a certain amount of money they could have offered you for you to be a regular on the show?

KS: No, nah. They offered me a million dollars to appear on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! and I still said no. Because it was ridiculous like I’m going to be camping in the bush like some sort of bushman. But it was more, I just don’t need to. I know a lot of people go on there during different parts of their careers. Like Macy Gray, we haven’t seen her for 15 years, but what a great guest. Like where has she been? They broke open a cocoon, and there’s Macy Gray. So I can understand, like Macy is probably sitting around in her place, wondering, “Yep, I’ve got time up my sleeve.” 

But I’ve got a lot of other things on the go, so it was more of a time issue than a money thing. It’s a big commitment, if you go right through the end, every week you’re doing a group performance, you’re doing a live song yourself, it’s just too much work.

PS: And finally, was it easy to manoeuvre around in the costume?

KS: I think I got lucky in the costume because it was a Nickelodeon costume built for multiple people to wear. And the other ones are more tailor-made and gas taped together. They look amazing on TV but when you see them in the back room, in the green room, it looks like they’ve been wired together with gas tape and neck braces, and weird helmets.

And some of them are super heavy. Mine was actually quite lightweight. I could see some of the other costumes, that they were kind of hampered by the size and movement. So I thought, okay, I’m going to be quite animated, kick my legs around. Trying to throw Jackie off thinking, rather than just being a big lazy lump, just standing at the front, I wanted to be as animated as I could. Even though I think I looked more animated than I did, but it was pretty easy to get around it because it was tailor-made.

Watch The Masked Singer at 7.30pm on Channel 10 and 10play.