SOPHIE Ellis-Bextor has revealed three of the Masked Singer judges guessed she was the Alien – but it was cut from the show.
The Murder On The Dancefloor singer, 41, was the first contestant to be unmasked on the wild and wacky ITV show as it returned on Saturday night.
Viewers immediately recognised the pop star’s distinctive voice, and it sounds like the judges – Rita Ora, Mo Gilligan, Jonathan Ross and Davina McCall – did too.
But replying to a question from The Celeb Report today, Sophie revealed it was their wrong guesses that were shown instead.
She said: “They didn’t put it in the edit but three of the judges said my name as well, so I already knew so I’d been rumbled.”
Sophie did her best to disguise her vocals, adopting an accent that left her vocal coach convinced viewers wouldn’t suspect her as a professional singer.
But when it came to the televised performance, her son Mickey, one, took just seconds to guess it was her, as did many people at home.
The mum-of-five said: “My kids found it absolutely hilarious that I put on such a weird accent. They were like ‘why on earth did you do that?’”
After watching last year’s series, Sophie was convinced if she took part she’d have to go all out and distance herself as much as possible from her real singing voice.
“I thought I’ve got to jump in with both feet and play a game because it’s not really a singing competition, it’s an identity competition,” she said.
“I suppose it’s a compliment, the fact that as soon as I opened my mouth my one-year-old looked at the telly and said ‘mummy’, and then Richard, my husband, was watching on Twitter and was saying ‘yeah, everybody’s saying it’s you’.
“I felt a really weird feeling. I suppose in a way that’s lovely because it’s my day job, you want to have a recognisable voice if you’re a singer but I felt like I’d done quite a good job so I was quite surprised.”
Sophie insists that she has no idea who any of the other competitors are, with show bosses keeping their identities top secret behind the scenes.
However, she did single out “flirty” Robin for praise, who she went up against in the first vote.
She laughed: “I was up against the Robin who I did think was pretty flirty and charismatic, I quite liked the Robin actually.”
