Warning: This story contains spoilers from the Wednesday, October 16, episode of The Masked Singer.
The mask is off! During the latest episode of The Masked Singer, Paul Shaffer was revealed as the Skeleton, really catching judge Ken Jeong off guard. The actor, 50, was convinced that Shaffer, 69, was Martin Short — and that was exactly what the musician was hoping for.
“The shows were taped in the summertime, and then you have to keep this secret all that time until now. After the first show, I went out to Canada where Martin was and we had a visit,” Shaffer tells Us Weekly exclusively. “Of course I didn’t tell him what was going on but having Ken Jeong in my mind, I was watching. What does he do? Turns out we have some similar mannerisms.”
Shaffer, who worked alongside as musical director, band leader and sidekick to David Letterman on both Late Night with David Letterman and Late Show with David Letterman, revealed he was a big fan of the reality competition ahead of joining.
“My manager got the call from the show, and he didn’t realize that I had seen it in the first season and was intrigued by it! So when he called with that offer I said, ‘Absolutely,’” he tells Us. “I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like, and the experience did not let me down. It was just as crazy and out of this world as I expected.”
That said, he was still a bit worried about performing.
“You almost can’t help but be nervous. I think that the fact that it is a vocal competition — you can’t ignore that. Now that it’s over I realized, you know what it really was. As crazy as the costumes and the clues are, it all comes down to singing at the end,” he shares, also revealing that he picked songs he was familiar with.
“I put a list together of songs that I knew that I remember. I heard afterward that they had a teleprompter with the lyrics but I could barely see two feet in front of me,” the producer adds. “They selected the ones that they thought would be good.”
The Masked Singer airs on Fox Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
