‘The Masked Singer’ Guest Host Niecy Nash Reveals Sweet Surprise From Producers That Almost Made Her ‘Cry Her Fake Eyelashes Off’

The Masked Singer producers went above and beyond to make guest host Niecy Nash feel at home during her time on the Fox singing competition. The comedian stepped in for Nick Cannon at the start of Season 5, premiering March 10, after the longtime host contracted COVID-19 and had to take time off from the show to recover. Nash reflected on her time emceeing The Masked Singer to Entertainment Tonight Wednesday, sharing that it couldn’t have been a more welcoming environment to enter so last minute.

“I was honored to stand in the gap and just be a tiny placeholder for him, for his franchise and his series,” Nash, a previous guest judge on the series, shared of being asked to step up while Cannon recovered. “It was a great job.” Working alongside judges Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke was a dream, and Nash revealed the show’s producers even surprised her with a special video message from her wife, Jessica Betts, to make her feel welcome.

“I wanted to cry my fake eyelashes off,” Nash told the outlet of the emotional surprise. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, that was so sweet!’” Nash and Betts tied the knot in an intimate ceremony back in August, but the Scream Queens star said it wasn’t hard for her to keep the secrets of Season 5 from her wife at all. “They keep those secrets like they are in a vault,” she revealed of what exactly she knew from hosting. “Nobody knows who these people are… I didn’t know anything. [There] was nothing for me to come back home and tell!”

Nash was around for the unmasking of a “very huge star,” she teased, which was extra exciting, being that she had guessed who it was before they removed their mask. “I knew, my gut instinct was like, ‘I know who that is!’ And I was right,” she said. “But who could I tell, you know?”

Cannon will rejoin the series as a host at some point during Season 5, executive producer James Breen revealed during Tuesday’s TCA presentation. “Nick rejoins towards the second half of the season,” Breen said. “I won’t be too specific about how many shows, but Niecy kicks things off.” The EP had nothing but wonderful things to say about Nash during her time on the show, gushing, “We got incredibly lucky there because Niecy just stepped in pretty last minute. And immediately had her own chemistry with the panel. She was just a producers’ dream. Absolutely fantastic.”