Warning! The following contains spoilers for The Masked Singer "Mask-Matics." Read at your own risk!
The Masked Singer had its second shocking elimination of Season 3 after its latest episode, as The Mouse was dropped from the competition. The talented singer's exit wasn't just surprising because of her strong singing voice, but because many had already pegged her as an accomplished singer from back in the day worthy of a longer run. So, why have Dionne Warwick and other legendary singers been unsuccessful in winning a season of The Masked Singer?
Dionne fWarwick has an idea, and thinks it has to do with the nature of The Masked Singer. The iconic singer signaled that the early elimination of her and other legendary singers may come down more to a lack of mystery than actual singing ability.
When there’s a distinctive voice that is recognized, you can only go so far because I guess that’s the gist of the show itself.
Dionne Warwick thinks that once the judges/audience have you pegged, elimination is only a matter of time. It is true that mystery does tend to take a higher importance over singing ability in terms of the show's appeal, though it's worth noting the voting system plays a factor as well. In-studio audiences are asked to vote for their favorite competitor, as opposed to voting for the contestant that should be eliminated. It's a nicer way of doing the voting, but does occasionally lead to unexpected eliminations like what happened with Warwick.
While Dionne Warwick's opinion may not be the reason legendary singers are getting eliminated early, there has to be something factoring into this strange phenomena. Having a recognizable voice is as good a guess as any, and perhaps future contestants will try to mask their voice a bit better. As for Warwick, she told EW that's not something she's able to do even if she wanted to.
It’s kind of hard to disguise my voice, unfortunately, in this case, and they recognized my voice, there’s nothing I can do about that… Well, you can’t deceive the viewers. If they recognize your voice, they recognize your voice.
Dionne Warwick's unmasking on The Masked Singer came just a couple episodes after Chaka Khan was revealed as Miss Monster. The two eliminations went down in a very similar way, in which both singers were knocked out as opposed to other contestants who gave a much poorer performance vocally. After seeing that go down not once, but twice in a season, perhaps Warwick isn't so off base to assume audiences vote based more on mystery than they do actual singing ability.
The Masked Singer airs on Fox Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET. Be sure to stick with CinemaBlend for more speculation on the identities of contestants, potential drama following eliminations, and for the latest news happening in television and movies at large.
