(Warning: This post contains spoilers for tonight’s episode of “The Masked Singer.”)
The Banana was unpeeled on Wednesday’s “The Masked Singer” to reveal Poison frontman Bret Michaels was the celeb behind the mask. And though the episode aired tonight, it was shot months ago and Michaels, of course, had no way of knowing that it would be his last turn on the Fox singing competition — or that there would be a special, unintended significance behind his final song choice, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
“This is the irony of my life, are you ready? Tonight, when that airs, will be the 10th anniversary of the survival of my brain hemorrhage,” Michaels told TheWrap Wednesday. “Me having no clue when these shows would air. And literally, 10 years ago, tonight, they were operating on my brain while this show airs.”
“So I chose to do a piano version of ‘Knockin’ on Heaven Doors.’ And the irony of the universe in that choice, and already the surrealness that I’m 30 years into my career and I’m a human-bandana-banana at this point and the irony and the fun and surrealness of everything that’s happening,” the singer told us.
Michaels — who has debut book, “Auto-Scrap-Ography,” due out May 12 — will be the first “Masked Singer” contestant to appear on the show’s new postshow, “After the Mask,” which airs at 9 p.m. tonight, immediately after his unmasking.
“I always felt the one thing this show should always do is that after-show wrapup,” Michaels told us. “Regardless of the tough times we are going through, the pandemic-level tough times, I just feel that after they’re done, being able to talk about it like this is really great. It lets you talk to fans about the reality of me being a human banana. Like, I’m singing into a banana mic. You’re fooling people, you’re trying to trick them so you can stay on the show as long as possible. I had a great time and when they talk about it on the aftershow, we were all laughing so hard talking about the nuttiness that goes on and trying to do it on that stage.”
Though Michaels says he went out of his way trying to fool you as best he could, he knows the leading guess for Banana from very early on was Brett Michaels.
“As much as I love Elvis, I knew I had to pick songs that were out of my comfort zone so that I could change up my vocals. I didn’t want to go home! I wanted to stay there and rock out,” Michaels said. “So I was trying everything I could do. And literally the first night I did it I was like, ‘I did the voice and I threw them off and they think I’m in the Blue Collar Comedy thing. This is awesome.’ And then I looked online and 99% of people thought it was me. And I was like, are you kidding? I did all that and they figured it out!”
“The Masked Singer” airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Fox.