(Warning: This post contains major spoilers from Wednesday’s “The Masked Singer.”)
Jackie Evancho is crossing her fingers that when you see her unmasked as The Kitty on tonight’s episode of “The Masked Singer” that you finally look at her as an adult and not the 10-year-old singing sensation you were introduced to many years ago on “America’s Got Talent.”
“I’m actually known for a more classical voice, so through the years I’ve discovered I have this pop voice as well,” Evancho told TheWrap. “And I thought that was a big advantage I had against the show, because no one has ever really heard my pop voice. So that was pretty much my approach when I want on the show, which was instead of using my classical voice, I’m just gonna go full out pop star and see if anyone can figure it out from that.”
Evancho says that it was through that pop voice — and the mask — that she was trying to reinvent herself.
“It is hard to shake that child prodigy persona that I have had my whole life, pretty much,” Evancho said. “Because I first got famous at 10 years old. So ‘The Masked Singer’ really gave me the option to start from scratch, literally and be completely anonymous and then completely transform who I am to the public, while all being anonymous to the public at the same time. And it’s gonna shock people when they see that I’m finally a real, adult artist and not just some little girl with a big voice.”
The judges offered up many wrong guesses about Kitty’s identity, including Mary Kate or Ashley Olsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale and Lea Michele — but one of those in particular really made Evancho’s day.
“The one that really stuck out to me was when the judges were thinking I was Vanessa Hudgens, because I was a big fan of hers ever since her ‘High School Musical’ days,” the singer told us. “And then I got to watch her grow into this real serious musician. And I really admired her work when she did ‘Grease.’ And so I thought that was the biggest compliment because she’s so talented and full of this strength and love for her career.”
“The Masked Singer” airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Fox.