The Masked Singer reveals identity of the Anteater – Deadline

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Wednesday’s episode of The Masked Singer, including the identities of the eliminated contestants.

It was another double elimination on Fox’s The Masked Singer, and two contestants got the boot on “Soundtrack of My Life” night.

Only the Donut survived to compete in the finals. Saying goodbye to the show are the Candelabra (Keyshia Cole) and the Anteater (John Oates). Here, Oates talks about his decision to do the show, and what he thought when Jenny McCarthy thought he was Willie Nelson. (Questions about his legal woes with former partner Daryl Hall were off limits).

DEADLINE: So I haven’t seen pictures of anteaters lately. Do they really have long arms?

ANTEATER They might be stretched. I have no idea how long the arms of an anteater. I know they have a long nose, which is pretty obvious if you see the costume. I don’t know. The arm thing was crazy. It was the only thing I could really move. It was a bit of a challenge, I have to say.

DEADLINE So Robin Thicke made a comment earlier about hearing the vulnerability in your voice. What did you think of that feedback?

ANTEATER Well, he’s a singer and he picked up on something in my voice, and that was one of the things that intrigued me about doing the show, that I wanted to see what people would think of me singing or what they would think of my vocals without any preconceived notion about obviously who I was, my career or Daryl Hall or the ’80s. By wearing that costume and singing, they have to just deal with you in a completely straight ahead way. They can’t have any preconceived notion, and I was really curious about how that was going to work out.

DEADLINE Did it take a while to convince you to do the show?

ANTEATER It was a pretty quick yes. The schedule of the taping fell into a gap in my tour schedule, so that was good. And I always liked going to LA because I’ve got a lot of friends there. I didn’t know what it was really going to be like until I got in and then realized that it was pretty intense. But it was definitely a unique experience, and I’m all about trying something new.

DEADLINE Some of the clues early on! You really put yourself out there with talk about how you hit a high and then you hit a low, that you lost your sense of self. Did you feel like you were giving a little too much away?

ANTEATER That was up to the show on the clues. I wrote a book called Change of Seasons: A Memoir, and they took a lot of the clue concepts from that. So if you read my book, you would probably know, but obviously the panel didn’t read the book, which is okay. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I feel like I’m an honest person. I like to tell it like it is, and so that was okay. I thought that people would kind of pick up on the idea of Maneater and Anteater. That might’ve been a more obvious clue that no one seemed to pick up on

DEADLINE When Jenny McCarthy guessed Willie Nelson, did that make you feel, um, mature?

ANTEATER Of all the people they compared me to, that really kind of threw me for a loop. I love Willie Nelson, but I don’t think I sound anything like him. I mean maybe John Mellencamp, maybe Bryan Adams, maybe Bob Seger. I thought they were in the ballpark. The thing about Jenny was that I had done her show on SiriusXM, so I thought maybe she would pick up on certain things, but she didn’t.

DEADLINE Which one of your songs did you pick personally?

ANTEATER The very first song, Walking in Memphis, was my choice. I chose that one because I really liked that song and I thought I could really do a good job with it. The other ones were dictated by the show’s theme, like the boy band theme, whatever the themes were. I had never sung a boy band song in my life, but it was cool. They’re good songs.

DEADLINE Did any of your friends or family guess your identity?

ANTEATER No. No. They really didn’t. And we really kept it a secret. I was able to do it. My wife was dying to tell our family, but she didn’t. It was interesting that no one picked up on it.

DEADLINE Booking someone of your fame and stature is a big deal for this show. Do you think more pros like yourself may be more apt to do it because of the social experiment aspect of it?

ANTEATER Well, I think if people have an open mind and they want to try something different … that was my mindset and that’s why I did it. It depends on the type of artist. Some artists, they’re very strict about who they are and how they want to be perceived. In my life at this point, I’ve had such a long and varied career that I just want to try things. Any opportunity to step outside the box is fun for me.