Rudy Giuliani is a lot of things: apparent lawyer, former mayor of New York City, Trump lackey, man who embarrasses himself in public frequently. Now, he can add a new title to that list: the disgraced former politician is reported to be a contestant on Fox’s The Masked Singer. Like most things Giuliani, though, his run on the show didn’t go smoothly. Deadline reports that in a taping last week when he was unmasked, judges Robin Thicke and Ken Jeong walked off of the set in protest.
This isn’t the first time the show has had an upset regarding allowing controversial political figures to participate. The reality singing competition — where celebrities compete vocally while masked in elaborate costumes, only to be revealed when they get eliminated by celebrity judges — caught criticisms in 2020 for having Sarah Palin on as a competitor. These incidents are reminiscent as well of when Sean Spicer was on Dancing With The Stars. It’s a bizarre nuance to reality television, that its producers think that we the people want to see problematic individuals who contributed to real harm dance and sing. But also they are courting the other half of their audience as well, those who do support these public figures and do genuinely want to see them doing regular celebrity things — you know, as opposed to being indicted. Reality television is a chaotic hellscape, and chaos they will give us.
Deadline did not reveal what Giuliani’s costume was or the song that got him eliminated, so we can all wait with bated breath for the episode to air next month. It will also be curious to see how the show’s producers edit the episode, and if they show the walkout or not. It’s reported that Jeong and Thicke did eventually return, but only after exiting, upset by the reveal. Judges Jenny McCarthy and Nicole Scherzinger apparently stayed on set and did the normal back and forth with the unmasked Giuliani. Jeong and Thicke did return to set eventually, and it’s unknown if anything derogatory was said or caught on camera. Fox has yet to comment. Regardless, I don’t think anything more embarrassing could happen to Rudy after the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference debacle. And now you can be reminded that that happened, and smile.
