[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoiler for The Masked Singer Season 12 finale.]
Heading into The Masked Singer Season 12 finale, there were only two contestants left in the competition: Buffalos and Wasp.
Both performed twice more for the panelists before it came time for a winner to be chosen. That honor went to Buffalos, but second place is impressive as well. And under the Wasp mask was R&B singer Mario.
Below, he opens up about his time on the competition. (Read our interview with Buffalos here.)
Congratulations on making it to the finale and coming in second!
Mario: I appreciate you. Thank you so much. It was a fun time.
What made you say yes to doing The Masked Singer? Did you have any hesitations?
No, I didn’t have any hesitations to doing it. They actually reached out to me a few years ago, the timing didn’t work right. So honestly, I think it was definitely a full-circle moment, and once I’d seen the Wasp costume, I was all in. I knew it was going to be fun and I was excited to bring the Wasp to life.
Michael Becker / FOX
What went into your song choices, especially in the semifinals and finals?
Picking the songs was very intentional. I think also picking where I perform them, because every show, sometimes they would switch up who would go first or who would go middle or last. So that would affect which song we chose and why. Just really give the Wasp a lot of dimension, because I didn’t want to only do slow songs. Sometimes I wanted to dance, sometimes I wanted to make people cry. Sometimes I wanted to tell a story. So yeah, all of it was very intentional.
You had some incredible performances over the season. Which one stood out to you?
I would say “Skyscraper,” the intention on the song, the difficulty in performing that song with the mask because my jaw was very restricted. So finding new ways to get the notes out without cracking or get the notes out without going off key was challenging for me, but also the song, I could have changed it, but I chose not to because of the meaning behind the song. I felt like it was something that a lot of people needed to hear at home at the time, and I felt like it was a very powerful meaning behind the song, just trusting yourself, believing in yourself, no matter what’s going on. And I felt like both me and the Wasp could relate to that. So just merging all of the worlds.
“Rock Your Body,” because it was one of the first performances like that introduction, performance.
And “Beautiful Things,” I love performing that record because I got to perform walking through the audience and make it in a moment, like making my way to the stage and just, I wanted the Wasp to have people to feel very connected. I didn’t want to do performances from the same place every show, and I wanted to make sure the performances matched with the intention of the song. And I think we did a great job collectively from the production to the choreographers, to the camera, everybody who was involved at bringing the Wasp closer and closer to the audience, but also the judges and letting them be in his world, very intentional about, okay, let’s start right next to the judges. Let’s let them feel this moment and make them a part of this moment, and maybe even give them a little more of a hint of who I was, right, who the Wasp was. So just all of it. There was a lot of thought that went into it to make it an overall great experience.
Talk about the panelists’ guesses. Rita Ora did figure you out. Had you come into this expecting anyone to know it was you?
I expected Robin [Thicke] to know because we have gone on tour together. We’ve known each other for a long time. Makes sense that Rita would figure it out because she’s a singer, so she listens differently. But I still try to make it a little difficult by switching songs up and maybe switching the way I move to kind of throw ’em off. But I guess being a panelist and also being a singer is kind of like a cheat code because you already understand voice and tone. So I just had to keep trying to turn ’em off.
What are you going to take away from the entire experience?
Imagination is one of the greatest gifts that we could ever have as human beings, and it can take you places that doubt and fear and all these other things cannot.
What surprised you the most about being on the show?
How big some of those costumes were and how people would move around in them because, okay, not being able to see and your feet is one thing, but to not be able to even move your head at all? Like Goo’s costume was humongous. It was crazy. I didn’t expect to see costumes that big. But also when you have the Buffaloes, right, their costume is big, but it’s really cool and it fits their personality. So I think just how they pick the costumes and how the costumes actually fit everybody’s personality and voices and everything.
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Are there any songs you wish you had performed at any point?
I honestly wanted to perform “Lose Control,” but Goo had got that song already, so it was on the list, and then when I chose it, they came back and it was like, oh man, Goo already chose this song. So yeah, he did a good job, but I feel like I could have gave it a little bit more to it. I just love that record. So it would’ve been one of my favorite songs to sing.
And congratulations on your new album.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you. It’s finally out. I was actually finalizing some of the mixes and mastering while finishing the show, so I was going from being the Wasp back to Mario. The album’s called Glad You Came, one of my favorite albums for sure. I feel like it shows and showcases my growth as an artist, as a writer, as a creative. A lot of the songs are very imaginative, intimate, vulnerable, confident, a little bit of everything you would want from a male R&B artist.
And I feel like it also continues to put R&B in a great space If you love R&B, love the nostalgia of R&B, but also the fresh version of it, I think this is an album for you. I feel like it’s timeless, and I love working on the album with James Fauntleroy, who executive produced it, and I can’t wait to just continue to push forward and perform it on tour, do more videos. My new single “Keep Going” is out right now. “Keep Going” is about keeping your love going even though things feel like it could be possibly ending, but it’s just another chapter in our exploration of each other. So again, just going back to that whole idea of imagination and creativity, using R&B as a medium for that.
The Masked Singer, Season 13 Premiere, Wednesday, February 12, 8/7c, Fox
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