‘The Masked Singer’: Is Nick Cannon Cluedle-Doo?

The Masked Singer Season 5 is in full swing, but with two notice changes from prior installments. First of all, host Nick Cannon is MIA. Cannon was said to have contracted COVID-19 when production began on Season 5’s first episodes. Reno 911! and Claws actress Niecy Nash came in to replace him, and she’s been the only host we’ve seen so far. The second change is a mysterious rooster mascot named Cluedle-Doo, who gives viewers at home extra hints to performers’ identities. (A further breakdown of this bird-centric twist from PopCulture.com’s Stephanie Downs can be found here.)

What I wanna present is a theory that maybe these two aspects are connected. What if Nick Cannon is actually Cluedle-Doo? Now I want to set this up with the presumption that Cannon did, in fact, have COVID-19. I hope that Masked Singer producers would not plant stories about the Wild ‘n’ Out personality contracting the virus just for a twist. I think that, perhaps, he was plugged into this role as a result of him being sidelined. And I’m not alone, a search on Twitter shows that several others think Cannon might be under Cluedle-Doo’s mask.

How is Cannon able to appear as CluedleDoo despite having COVID-19? There are two ways, both of which involve reality TV trickery. The way the rooster’s segments are presented, he is totally separate from the main show on the stage. He is spliced in to make it appear that he’s hacking into the broadcast to show TV viewers tips that judges don’t have or simply missed during packages. Given this presentation, it’s more than possible that the segments were produced at another time away from the main stage show.

Cannon could have simply filmed these segments later on, and producers edited them into early episodes where they pleased. Furthermore, he might not have to star at them at all. There is really no way of telling who is actually inside the costume, meaning that Cannon would not even have to appear in the segments shown. He’d only have to pop in the costume when the actual Cluedle-Doo unmasking goes down.

If it is Nick Cannon, I could easily imagine a few episodes in, the infamous bird is unmasked, and Cannon segues back into being host again. This would not only ease Cannon back in but also kill the gimmick before it gets too old. Plus, it wouldn’t be totally random to viewers, being as he’s so synonymous with the series.If it’s a random celebrity — even if it’s former contestant or guest judge — it might not resonate with viewers.

Who is Cluedle-Doo? Is it Nick Cannon? Who knows! We’ll find out on a TBD new episode of The Masked Singer, which airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on FOX. You can watch live via FuboTV, which offers a free trial. For next-day streaming, Hulu will have new episodes posted weekly. PopCulture.com has even more The Masked Singer Season 5 coverage coming, so stay tuned!

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