The Masked Singer‘s Piglet may have kept fans and judges on their toes as they attempted to guess its identity, but not everyone had as much difficulty guessing correctly. (Warning: Major spoilers ahead!) After Piglet was crowned the Season 5 winner and revealed to be 98 Degrees singer, actor, and TV host Nick Lachey as the voice behind the mask, the singer revealed that his children managed to correctly identify him within seconds of his first performance on Season 5.
After being handed that coveted Golden Mask trophy and humorously quipping that “Daddy’s coming home with a little hardware” in the final moments of the season, Lachey opened up about his time on the Fox singing competition to Entertainment Weekly. Reflecting on the numerous guesses to his identity that arose throughout the competition, the singer told the outlet that his three children – sons Camden, 8, and Phoenix, 4, and daughter Brooklyn, 6, whom he shares with wife Vanessa Lachey – “knew exactly that it was me probably before anybody else did.” His family being big fans of the series, Lachey said they watched the first episode together, and after just “two or three notes got out of my mouth,” his daughter “pointed at me, and said, ‘That’s Daddy!’”
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While his children were quick to guess his identity, they are still in the dark about his win. Lachey told EW that he and his family have gone “through the season watching it together and having Masked Singer Wednesdays.” While his children “know this is the week that daddy gets unmasked and sent home,” he said ‘they don’t know that I’ve won. In fact, my son on the way to school today said, ‘Daddy, I had a dream that you lost.’ So I said, ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.’”
Lachey, who revealed that he was actually “in talks to be a part of season 2,” but ultimately had to decline to join the series due to scheduling conflicts, credited his children for being “part of the reason” why he embarked on his The Masked Singer journey. He said his “kids were so into the show and I knew they’d have fun with it. Anything you can do that your kids enjoy, at this point, that makes it worthwhile.” Lachey said that after receiving a call from producers while on a ski trip in Colorado, he “jumped right in,” and within just days, he was presented with the Piglet costume. During Wednesday night’s episode, Lachey was unmasked as Piglet alongside singer Jojo as the Black Swan, which took second place, and third-place contestant Wiz Khalifa as Chameleon.
If you weren’t using FuboTV (get a free trial here) or another service to watch live this season, you ca catch up on The Masked Singer via Hulu. All past episodes are available for streaming, and the Season 5 finale is expected to be available sometime Thursday morning.
