‘Masked Singer’: Mushroom Says His Performances Were All About ‘Embodying the Spirit’ of His Daughter
Aloe Blacc #AloeBlacc
(Warning: This post contains spoilers for “The Masked Singer” Season 4 finale.)
Aloe Blacc came in second place on tonight’s fourth-season finale of “The Masked Singer,” just behind singer LeAnn Rimes (who was unmasked as the Sun). But being No. 2 isn’t an issue for the Grammy nominee, who told TheWrap what really matters to him is the ability to finally share his time on the Fox singing competition with his 7-year-old daughter, Mandela, whom he modeled his Mushroom persona after.
“The character I had presented was basically my daughter,” “The Man” singer said. “I thought, this is going to be a real surprise for her when she sees me unmasked. And when I put on the Mushroom outfit, because it has a stem and the stem was represented as a skirt, I sort of embodied the way that she is and plays when she’s wearing her dress-up princess dresses and that kind of thing. So all of the feminine moves and the walks and all of that was very much me embodying the spirit of my daughter.”
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Blacc even based his final song selection on what he thought would make his little girl happy, picking Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish.”
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“My finale song, doing the Frank Sinatra hit ‘My Way,’ that would have been a great end song. But instead, I chose a song that I dance to with my daughter. And a lot of what I did on stage was embodying her spirit. I wanted to make this a big surprise for her.”
But “The Masked Singer” wasn’t just a chance for Blacc to connect with his daughter, as the singer tells TheWrap he wanted to use it as a chance to bring as many people together as possible amid the pandemic and political unrest.
“For me, the deciding factor of going on the show was the fact that ‘The Masked Singer,’ being such a huge show with such a wide audience, was a moment to bring the country together. We’ve had so much division politically. We’ve had so much trauma and challenge in terms of the pandemic. And this is a place where I can go to be part of bringing joy, bringing togetherness, bringing connection to everybody from all walks of life around the country. And that’s what me performing on the show, and what I really believe ‘The Masked Singer,’ represents.”