Davina McCall shocked fans and judges with the “maddest ruse” of her life as she unveiled herself as a secret celebrity contestant on The Masked Singer.
Her appearance comes shortly after she returned to normality after undergoing a successful operation to remove a rare 14mm-wide benign tumour, a colloid cyst, from her brain, in November.
The 57-year-old has been a judge on the ITV singing contest for six years. It sees celebrities perform a series of songs while under elaborate disguise.
McCall dressed as Star and sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” followed by “This Christmas”. The show’s judging panelists, Jonathan Ross, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Mo Gilligan, were left flabbergasted at the reveal. She later switched sides as she wore a red dress to join her fellow judges.
Host Joel Dommett was left astonished as he said: “She lied to me right to my face. She texted me and said that she had severe diarrhoea but she did no – in fact, she was in a costume. Livid! I’ll never trust her again.”
Meanwhile, Ross added: “There is absolutely no way. We thought you couldn’t sing that well. I’m glad you’re OK, but to me you are now dead.”
Fans were left stunned as they called it “the best unmasking ever!”
McCall recounted the elaborate lengths she went to to keep up the ploy as she said it had been on her “bucket list” for a long time.
”Firstly, keeping a secret from my kids all summer. Twice Holly and Chester asked me why I was singing Christmas songs,” she said.
She added, “I learnt such an enormous amount and now massively, even more than I already did, respect the people who take part in the series because it’s eight shows. That’s a lot of songs to learn.”
The TV personality impressed judges with her singing voice as they insisted Star’s singing was too good to be McCall’s.
“It was just the maddest ruse I have ever done. I didn’t expect to enjoy the whole process of singing as much as I did,” she said.
“I’ve booked a singing lesson for after the recording of the show and I’m going to carry on singing. Just for myself, not to sing anywhere or do anything but just because I loved it!”
McCall was beaten in the show Frankie Goes to Hollywood singer Holly Johnson, who was revealed to be Nutcracker.
