AUSTRALIA – Season two of The Masked Singer kicked off on Monday night, but fans are already willing to place their bets on who’s the elusive Queen character. For those who missed the show, some of the Queen’s clues included her “desire to rule the world”, a link to Tasmania, Italian roots and that she’s known highs and lows – “sometimes at the same time.”
But it was the line “13 times I’ve been a bridesmaid but never the bride” that made fans flock to Twitter with one common guess – singer-songwriter and former Australian representative for Eurovision Kate Miller-Heidke. The clues certainly match up as the 38-year-old is a classically trained opera singer (which would fit with those “Italian” roots) and despite being nominated for an ARIA Award on 13 occasions, is yet to win one.
Queen is 200% Kate Miller Heidke
– Ruled the world (Eurovision)
– Italian works (operatic backgrounds)
– “Never the bride” (wrote Muriel’s Wedding musical)
– Tasmania (her vocal coach was Tasmanian)#MaskedSingerAU— Leon Sjogren (@Leonsjogren) August 10, 2020
When the Queen took to the stage with a dreamy version of The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights, though, that seemed to be the final clincher – at least in Twitter’s eyes. “I’m so confident that the Queen is Kate Miller-Heidke that if it’s not her I’ll shave my hair off,” one brave viewer tweeted. “I KNOW THOSE HIGH NOTES! DEFINITELY KATE MILLER-HEIDKE,” another exclaimed.
Along with four studio albums and three live albums, Kate also co-wrote the music and lyrics for Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical which could be another reference. She also performed her song Zero Gravity at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, Israel and placed ninth overall. The song detailed mum-of-one Kate’s battle with postnatal depression and told TV WEEK: “It’s definitely empowering to take something that’s personal and vulnerable and to turn it into connection with people.”
“I do feel the song goes to those dark places, but ultimately it’s an empowering song to sing, and hopefully to hear, as well.”
Perhaps these “highs and lows” are in reference to her Eurovision song and daring performance swinging around the stage?
The first character to be revealed was Echidna who turned out to be tennis champ, Mark Philippoussis. The triple Olympian sung his rendition of George Michael’s Faith and panellist Jackie O even guessed that he was the man behind the mask before the big reveal.
“I was bummed, I’m gonna be honest, I am competitive. Who doesn’t love to sing? I love music, it was an incredible adventure,” Mark told host Osher Gunsberg and panellists Jackie, Dannii Minogue, Dave Hughes and Urzila Carlson.
TV RATINGS DROP
The Masked Singer Australia was last year’s breakout hit but after much promotional hype, the reality show returned to television screens with a smaller audience. The season two debut was watched by an average 733,000 people in the capital cities, down from 1.2 million in 2019. Those figures represent a 37 per cent decline in metropolitan viewers year-on-year.
