Season eight of “The Masked Singer” is quickly winding down, airing its semifinals on Thanksgiving night. And though Snowstorm ended up getting eliminated, she’s still pretty thankful for what the show has given her: the start of a real music career.
Competing against the Lambs and Harp was always expected to be a tough battle for Snowstorm. Fans are all but completely certain that Harp is “Glee” powerhouse Amber Riley, while judge Ken Jeong guessed on Thursday night that the Lambs might be three women from the one of the most popular girl groups of all time: the Spice Girls. In the end, Snowstorm put up a valiant battle but was eliminated, and revealed to be comedian Nikki Glaser.
Of course, Glaser wanted to make it further than she did, but she’s still pretty pleased with herself for making it to the semifinals. Now, she’s more certain than ever that she’s ready to pursue a real music career.
“I really have been, in recent years, wanting to pursue a singing career or just get back into it, and do it more, but I’ve been really embarrassed to do that,” Glaser explained to TheWrap. “Because I just didn’t want anyone to be like, ‘Oh, she thinks she’s a singer now? This is so cringe. Be a comedian! Don’t do this.’”
Glaser noted that that was a particularly hard sentiment to overcome when many of her peers actually did roast her earlier this year, when she released a single following Bob Saget’s death.
“We just recorded the song, and I just thought, ‘Actually, this sounds pretty good. And I feel like Bob would want me to release it, even though I’m embarrassed to.’ And so I did!” Glaser said. “And like, the comedy community made so much fun of me. They’re like, ‘Eww, she’s being so cringe, and so sincere, it’s so gross. She thinks she’s a singer.’ And so I really was discouraged after that moment of like, ‘You can’t do this, just stay in your lane.’”
Glaser particularly loved the fact that no one would know it was her until the end of “The Masked Singer” and so, if she did well, it would be a pleasant surprise, and if she did poorly, she would simply be living up to expectations. Of course, Glaser admits there’s a part of her that’s pretty ready to tell those critics in comedy to “suck it.” But more than anything, she has confidence in herself restored.
“Whether or not it gave other people the ability to see that I’m good, it gave me the ability,” she said. “Because I was always in my head about it being like, ‘I know I like to do this and I know that my friends are nice, and they say I sound good, but like do I actually?’ And this allowed me to have like the confidence now, like ‘Oh yeah, I think I’m actually I’m decent.’ It’s a place to start from, so right after the show ended, I just went full force into voice lessons.”
She hasn’t set her expectations too high at this point, noting that she hopes to find some success in roughly four years, since it took her seven years to really beef up her place in the comedy world.
“[Singing] is truly what I love to do more than even doing comedy. And I still love comedy. That doesn’t mean I don’t love comedy,” Glaser said. “It’s just, comedy was something I found because I was told I couldn’t sing. So I was like, OK, what’s another thing I can do in entertainment? I found comedy as, you know, it was just another road I could take because the one I wanted to take was down to me. And now it’s opened up.”
“The Masked Singer” airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.