‘The Masked Singer’: Which Grammy-Winning Disco Diva Was Unmasked?

Gloria Gaynor had an enduring hit with the disco anthem “I Will Survive.” The two-time Grammy Award winner won’t survive in The Masked Singer competition any longer, after she was let go Wednesday (Oct. 19) in another double unmasking.

Fox’s quirky hit show slid back onto our TV sets after skipping last week when a rain delay caused the baseball playoffs to spill over.

There were thrills and spills aplenty this time, as the contestants celebrated “Andrew Lloyd Webber Night.” The British king of musicals was on hand to watch all the action, which saw Maize and Mermaid unmasked.

After performing “Heaven On Their Minds,” Maize accumulated the fewest number of votes and was sent packing. He lifted his helmet to reveal Mario Cantone, the actor, comedian and singer.

Mermaid performed “Any Dream Will Do,” then entered into a battle with “Robo Girl” on “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from Evita.

One had to go, and Mermaid was sunk.

Under the mask was singing star Gaynor, whose signature song “I Will Survive” logged three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1979.

“You are one of the greatest singers of our generation,” Lloyd Webber told the 79-year-old New Jersey native after the big reveal.

And why did Gaynor come on board? “I’ve been watching it, it just looked like so much fun,” she explained. “I said, ‘yeah, I gotta do this.’”

Earlier, Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger returned to Cats with a performance of “Memory.” Scherzinger made the song her own when she joined the cast for the 2014 West End revival of Cats, in which she played Grizabella and received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress in a supporting role.

Gaynor and Cantone join Daymond John (Fortune Teller) and the “Brady boys” Mike Lookinland, Barry Williams and Christopher Knight (Mummies), Montell Jordan (Panther), Jeff Dunham (Pi-Rat), Chris Kirkpatrick (Hummingbird), Eric Idle (Hedgehog) and William Shatner (Knight) as the celebrities eliminated from the current season of The Masked Singer.

Season 8 of TMS rings in the changes, with several big tweaks to its format.

For the first time, each episode features a completely new round of masked celebs with only one contestant moving forward by the end of the hour. Plus, the audience votes in-studio for their favorite performance of the night, and the singer with the lowest tally will then unmask in the middle of the show before taking his or her place in the new Masked Singer VIP section to watch the rest of the episode.

Lars Brandle

Billboard