This last Wednesday on The Masked Singer, Banana Split unmasked to reveal former American Idol contestant Katharine McPhee and her husband David Foster.
The couple had previously talked about how they wanted to appear on The Masked Singer to show their love despite their unconventional marriage.
McPhee, 37, married Foster, 72, in 2019. Despite the age difference, the couple welcomed their first child together this year.
McPhee has talked about her time on The Masked Singer and now she is comparing the experience to that of American Idol.
The Masked Singer is more of a ‘circus’
Katharine McPhee spoke to Entertainment Weekly about her experience on The Masked Singer and she talked about how it compared to American Idol.
The big difference between The Masked Singer and American Idol to McPhee was the feeling backstage during the shows.
“I felt more like I was in a circus than a talent competition, to be honest,” McPhee said.
“Because, you know, sitting backstage in these glittery costumes with the headpiece off, and you’ve got these black curtains all drawn, you can hear people warming up — I felt like I was in the circus.”
In the fifth season of American Idol, Chris Daughtry was eliminated in the Top 4 round when he and Katharine McPhee were in the Bottom Two.
She went on to the finale and lost to Taylor Hicks.
On The Masked Singer, McPhee made it to the semi-finals and then ended up eliminated in a massive battle with Queen of Hearts, who most people believe is Jewel.
The struggles of both The Masked Singer and American Idol
On American Idol, Katharine McPhee sang songs by Ella Johnson, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Sy Oliver, Christina Aguilera, Faith Hill, Queen, Gertrude Lawrence, Whitney Houston, Phil Collins, Elvis Presley, R. Kelly, Judy Garland, Duke Ellington, and KT Tunstall.
However, looking back on the experience, she said it was hard to get the rights to the songs she really wanted to sing.
“Specifically what it reminded me of was the difficulty of song choice,” McPhee said. “It really reminded me like, oh my gosh, the struggle and the constant battle of, ‘Okay, you made it past the next round, now what song are you gonna do?’”
The same thing happened on The Masked Singer, where she sang songs by Pink, Michael Buble, The Chicks, Lady Gaga, Arthur Freed, and Stevie Wonder.
“The audiences at home probably don’t care about this detail, but it’s very hard to get certain songs cleared,” she said. “Like I couldn’t get Olivia Rodrigo’s songs cleared at all, which was disappointing because I would have loved to have done a couple of her songs. So that was what it reminded me the most of.”
The Masked Singer airs on Wednesday nights at 8/7c on Fox.