Masked Singer's Melody Thornton reacts to Dave Hughes' shock move

After what was arguably the most star-studded season so far, former Pussycat Doll Melody Thornton was declared this year’s winner of The Masked Singer Australia.

The US pop star, who performed on the show as Mirrorball, managed to make it all the way to the grand finale without being named by any of the superstar guessing panellists.

However, comedian Dave Hughes, who is notorious for making wildly incorrect guesses on the show, suddenly worked out it was Melody right before she was about to be revealed.

While fans online were stunned by Hughesy’s surprising guess, with many people predicting that the producers told him to say her name, it turns out Melody was also shocked behind the mask.

“I was very much like, oh, wow!” Melody tells Yahoo Lifestyle following her win. “Like, what does that mean? I didn't know if I had to take off my mask then and be like, ‘You're right!’.

“That was pretty cool, and it was his first one! It was a magic season and I hope that I broke the seal for Hughesy and he gets the next one too.”

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Mel B also came close to guessing Melody a number of times throughout the season after piecing together the cryptic clues, but she instead named her former band member, Nicole Scherzinger.

“All the signs were there!” Melody remarks. “I was like, you’re a little bit off, but you’ve got a lot of stuff right!

“I love Mel B, I love her accent. That was so full on standing there with her in front of me talking, it was pretty cool. I wish I could’ve spoken with her more after the show. I would’ve told her a million things, like how she made me so proud of my hair. She means so much to so many people.”

‘A vocal athlete’

Unlike the show’s runner-up Sheldon Riley who told Yahoo Lifestyle he was brought in “very last minute”, Melody says she was given “a couple of months” to prepare for The Masked Singer.

“I sang a lot of Mariah Carey, I got into Ariana Grande, I did a lot of Whitney Houston,” she shares.

“I have a lot of vocal hygiene stuff that I do, which includes cleaning my nose every night and using nose spray and making sure I have my air purifier. I started getting ready a while before, just to prepare and make sure that if I was tired I could still pull through. There are so many fun little things that go into being a vocal athlete.”

She adds that while she loved her elaborate Mirrorball costume, the mask was “so heavy” and gave her limited visibility on stage.

“I thought mine was so beautiful that I was not going to complain,” she continues. “I did think at some point I would have indentations or something in my forehead and I was like, okay, well, we'll just massage those out.”

‘I just try and stay busy and keep surprising people’

Speaking about what’s next after The Masked Singer, Melody says she would love to visit Australia again soon for a proper visit.

“I have an EP that I released and wasn't able to go to Australia because of the pandemic, so I would love to perform some of those records and do a tour and just properly go out and about and not have to wear a mask and a hoodie and all of that,” she laughs.

“I had to kind of really keep a low profile when I was there. I had to be super careful, I couldn't just grab a coffee or whatever.

“I’m also about to go on tour with the musical The Bodyguard in the UK which should be fun, I’ll be working on new music, and there's lots of really cool stuff in the pipeline. I just try and stay busy and keep surprising people.”

Melody Thornton is the fourth celebrity to win The Masked Singer Australia after pop star Cody Simpson, singer and actress Bonnie Anderson, and US singer-songwriter Anastacia.

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