Among the 16 contestants that competed on the second season of Fox’s “The Masked Singer” were two “Cheetah Girls”: Adrienne Bailon and Raven-Symoné. But due to the nature of the kooky singing competition, which requires its contestants to peform in head-to-toe costumes until they are eliminated — or win the whole thing — viewers at home didn’t know that both of those “Cheetah” sisters were part of Season 2 until Wednesday night’s finale. And neither did they.
Bailon wasn’t unmasked as The Flamingo until the two-hour episode, during which she came in third-place behind No. 2 contestant Chris Daughtry (The Rottweiler) and winner Wayne Brady (The Fox). However, Raven was revealed to be The Black Widow contestant more than a month ago.
“We got on the phone [last night] and we were like, ‘How did they think they were gonna fool us with that one?!?,” Bailon told TheWrap Thursday, after she was finally able to share her secret with her former bandmate. “We actually think it’s pretty genius that the producers chose to have two Cheetah Girls on the show at the same time, it’s actually genius how they kept us from knowing that it was each other and at the same time, it’s like, how did you think they were gonna fool us?”
Bailon and Raven starred in the 2003 Disney Channel original movie “The Cheetah Girls” together, along with Kiely Williams and Sabrina Bryan, as the the titular girl group. The film was a success and the four girls went on to record albums together as an actual girl group and film two sequel movies, though Raven did not appear in the third film.
So when Bailon, who is now a co-host on “The Real,” was at home watching The Black Widow perform on “The Masked Singer” earlier this season, it didn’t take her long to figure out who was behind the mask.
“You can’t fool me with that one. I’ve recorded two whole albums with that woman,” Bailon told us.
‘I didn’t recognize her from the first song she sang, which was crazy — but our voices have developed over the years and she sounds more mature. But when she did the Cher song ‘Believe,’ I was like, ‘Oh, I’d recognize that voice anywhere!’”
Bailon admits that, “you, ‘Cheetah Girls’ fans around the world I’m sure knew.”
As for coming in third-place, well, Bailon thinks Brady really deserved that win.
“Oh my gosh. Honest to God, I was like, that man is so ridiculously talented on so many levels,” she told us. “The way that he can freestyle and rap and improv and act and sing and dance, I was like, ‘No, kudos to him. He killed it and he really deserved to win.’ He was like talking about the judges in his rap! I didn’t know you could do that. He definitely was genius with his strategy.”