THE Masked Singer’s Davina McCall insists she won’t let slip who has won the ITV hit — despite being pestered by one of her kids to tell all.
The show is recorded months in advance so Davina plus her co-panellists Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora and Mo Gilligan know the identities of tonight’s three finalists and the winner.
But she won’t tell a soul — not even her own kids.
Davina said: “Holly, my eldest daughter, watched it with me a couple of times before she went back to uni. She was like, ‘Is it blah blah?’. I was like, ‘Holly, you know me so little’.
“She said, ‘I’m your daughter’. I went, ‘No, you can’t pull that cord, like, it doesn’t work like that. It ruins it, it would ruin it if you knew’.”
The show’s millions of viewers have to guess which famous face is singing from inside the outrageous outfits.
Only six producers know the identities of the singers, who are assigned top secret code names.
And all but around 30 members of the studio audience are kicked out before celebs are filmed being unmasked.
They wear helmets, visors and a sign or clothing saying “don’t speak to me” when out of costume on the set, which has a one-way system to limit interaction.
Designers of the outlandish outfits are given each celeb’s measurements but don’t have any idea who will be wearing their creations.
And contestants’ strict contracts ban them from mentioning their participation in the show to anyone, even their families.
This series has seen former England manager Glenn Hoddle dressed as a grandfather clock, Martine McCutcheon disguised as a swan, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor pretending to be an alien.
Yet the most controversial outfits this time have been Davina’s.
Fans were stunned by a see-through dress she wore last month — but some trolls lashed out, saying she was too “old and wrinkly” to wear another slinky white number slashed high up the thigh.
But Davina, 53, says she would have pushed the boundaries even more after seeing the reaction, had the show not been pre-recorded.
She added: “I’m quite bad like that because if I get told off then I’m like, ‘Right, now I’m going to do it twice’. It’s always a bit risky.
“I have a line where I think, ‘I wouldn’t wear that, that’s too risky, or I don’t feel comfortable in it’. I just don’t think any of the outfits that I was wearing were that shocking.
“I didn’t think they were outrageous. I’ve got an idea in my head of what I think would pass the public perception.
“I think you’re never too old really for anything. Just wear what you like and what you feel comfortable in.
“I’ve seen women who are young wear something outrageous. But because they don’t feel comfortable in it, it looks a bit uncomfortable.
“But then you could see somebody 50 wear the same outrageous costume.
“She might not have the beautiful, pert, young body of a 23-year-old but because she’s got the confidence, it looks better on her than it does on the young one.”
People criticising confident women in daring dresses is not a new phenomenon for Saturday night telly, as Davina’s pal Amanda Holden, 49, knows too well.
She too has faced jibes from viewers, as well as hundreds of Ofcom complaints, for some of the outfits she’s worn on Britain’s Got Talent.
And Davina said: “I’m sure it is the same with Amanda because she looks smoking hot, bloody amazing. I always think that it’s good to kind of try to be an example.
“And I think Amanda Holden is another great example of somebody living her best life.”
Davina went on: “There’s always going to be a few people that complain about anything, about everything. Social media is so brilliant in so many ways, but it can be so destructive too.”
However, social media has helped The Masked Singer become must-watch telly — with bosses hoping tonight’s final will be the biggest TV audience of the year so far outside of news and sport.
The show, now in its second series and with insiders saying it’s already renewed for a third, has become the hit of lockdown.
Davina says its success is because it doesn’t laugh or poke fun at people, and is celebratory like her old stomping ground Big Brother was.
She added: “The thing about The Masked Singer is there are no losers.
“Everybody is seen as a winner and a little bit like what we really wanted to achieve with Big Brother — that every housemate that took part in that TV programme, when they came out whether they’d been a villain or a hero, everyone deserves the utmost respect.
“In this show, whether you come out first or last, everyone’s a winner. There isn’t shame in coming out first.
“We’re just excited to see who the contestant is. It’s like, ‘Oh my god, take it off. Who are you?’.”
Big Brother was rested indefinitely in 2018 after 19 series and Davina says there has never been a better time to reboot the show she hosted for a decade.
But she said: “I haven’t even heard a rumbling.
“And what’s sad is this pandemic would be the most genius time to put 13 strangers into a house for 13 weeks, while the rest of us are also locked indoors.”
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