themaskedsingerjudges © Photo: Getty Images

Jonathan Ross opens up about awkward moment filming The Masked Singer

The Masked Singer will air in January

Online Writer
December 12, 2019

Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora, Ken Jeong and Davina McCall are the incredible famous faces that will be making up the panel on The Masked Singer UK, which will begin airing in January. On Thursday, the all-star cast took questions from HELLO! and other reporters about the upcoming talent show, and at one point Jonathan even opened up about the most awkward moment during filming so far. 

When asked: "Are they [the singers] ever offended by any of the guesses that you make?" the famous chat show host revealed that at one point the judges mistook a professional singer for a rookie, and we can imagine that everyone on the judges' panel was left feeling a little embarrassed. 

© Photo: Getty Images

Jonathan Ross and Ken Jeong

The TV star explained: "It was all good natured. We made sure to be supportive of the singing as much as possible. A few times we did say, 'oh I think that’s not a professional singer', and it turned out it was a professional singer. So that was the closest that it got to being awkward I think."

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© Photo: Getty Images

Jonathan Ross at The Masked Singer press event

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He continued: "You know what's interesting, there's no malice, there was no nastiness, there was no sarcyness involved there. You know, my tendency doing later night TV is to sometimes go sarcastic. Once I made a joke like that, and the audience quickly let me know that wasn't what they wanted. We're trying to make it a warm show and a supportive show. It's kind of a risk these people are taking coming out and doing that, just on a personal level, going through it, so we were supportive of them. And the jokey names we gave out… hopefully were jokey enough not to seem like in any way a critique."

The talent show, which has been a huge hit across the globe, is similar to a guessing game. Only producers know who the singers are, and while on stage they wear costumes, encouraging the judges to guess who is beneath the mask.

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