The Masked Singer finalists have been determined and no one is surprised that Astronaut is in the Super 9. Did the final clue package give more insight into who is behind the spaceman costume?
Astronaut making it to the finals is not a big surprise to anyone. His performance of “Shape Of You” By Ed Sheeran secured his spot as a finalist. The final group C clue package, however, was what sealed his identity as country music star Hunter Hayes. The bonus clue was “I’m all for horses.” Hayes once performed for the open ceremony of The FEI World Equestrian Games. The clue package given by his bro-pilot started with coffee. While this would seem a vague clue for many for Hayes its a bit stronger. His love of coffee has been well documented including interviews where he’s listed his favorite coffee houses in Nashville and favorite drink at each one and he’s even offered a VIP Coffee House Experience on one of his tours.
Next was a pair of dice with a total of 10 on them. As pointed out in earlier prediction articles, Hayes holds a Guinness World Record, something host Nick Cannon told us there was one of in group C. His record happens to be for 10 live performances in 24 hours. He went on to describe an incident where Astronaut, in front of thousands of people, fell flat on his face. This sounds like the incident where the young singer had performed the national anthem at a World Series game and it was not so well received. He got a lot of backlash, but just like bro-pilot described he picked himself up and kept going. The last visual clue was a bridge. As Hayes was born in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, this seems an obvious clue.
An even bigger clue tonight came during the post-performance discussion when he told Nicole that they had celebrated an important birthday together at a mall. Hunter Hayes and Nicole Scherzinger appeared together, in 2015 at A Capitol Fourth in D.C. An event that also paid tribute to the 100th birthday of Frank Sinatra. During his second performance, he mentioned that he’d be singing a song by a dear friend. Astronaut sang “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” by Stevie Wonder. A friendship between the music icon and the young country star might surprise some viewers. It might be less of a surprise to fans of Dancing with the Stars as in 2013 they performed together on the show. This wasn’t the first or only time the two performed together. That week Astronaut spoke of being a bright star young who overreached and got burned, leaving him feeling lonely and isolated another reference to the previously mentioned World Series performance.
Many people were thrown off track when Astronaut said he said he wandered for what felt like 500 days until he used sign language to find his own voice. Fans and reporters were desperately trying to find evidence that the country singer speaks sign language. A more likely explanation for that clue is that a few years after he bombed at the national anthem, he released his song “One Shot.” This song was turned into a PSA series later released, intended to help viewers recognize the “signs” of being buzzed. This humourous way to get a drunk driving message across definitely helped Hayes redeem himself.
A bunch of balloons shown while he was talking about being lonely was one of the overlooked visual clues. His song “Everybody’s Got Somebody But Me” has the lyrics, “Seems like everyone around me is on their honeymoon. I’d love to take a pin to a heart-shaped balloon.” We have been able to link other clues to Hayes in previous articles. Early on there were multiple references to Astronaut starting young. Hayes started his career as a toddler so you can’t much younger than that. One of the first visual clues was a loose skeleton foot and Hayes did a duet for the remake of Footloose with Victorious star Victoria Justice. With no clues that don’t fit it’s been clear since day one that Astronaut is Hunter Hayes.
The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays at 8pm EST on Fox.
