We were STUNNED to find out it was an actual Pussycat Doll that was unmasked on The Masked Singer UK! Melody Thornton had us fooled for weeks as the very cute Maypole and reflected on her chance to shine as a singer in her own right, away from her bandmates. Report by Jonesl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 It's just stressful the whole time.
00:02 I don't sound anything like any of my bandmates.
00:05 It's like...
00:05 Melody Thornton, it is so good to see you.
00:09 The Masked Singer is the best thing.
00:11 You find yourself sitting there watching an air fryer singing
00:13 and a maypole and you think, "What is my Saturday night?"
00:17 Yeah, it's crazy.
00:18 The costumes are so wacky, but then every now and then,
00:22 then there are these great voices coming out of some of them
00:25 and then some of them are just having...
00:28 Oh, we're all having so much fun.
00:29 I had to come up with so many different stories for her.
00:32 Her family were turned into boxes of matches
00:34 and one of her family members was a baseball bat
00:39 and so it's like on the outside, she's really shiny and pretty,
00:42 but on the inside, she's sad.
00:44 We love her and so do the judges
00:46 and I have to ask you about performing Rita Ora's song
00:49 in front of Rita Ora.
00:51 Babe, that is brave.
00:53 Were you really nervous?
00:54 Because you actually sounded like her at times.
00:57 I think amongst ourselves, I mean, I'm not going to go on and on
01:01 about the patriarchy, but amongst ourselves,
01:04 I feel like women are always being pitted against each other,
01:06 even if it's meant to honour somebody or it's a bit of fun
01:10 and so I just wanted her to know that.
01:12 I was like...
01:13 I did get some Pussycat Dolls, but I didn't get the right one.
01:18 Right, right. Everybody bought me.
01:20 I was like...
01:20 Okay. Yeah, I mean, there were so many things that...
01:26 But I think that's the thing about a group is like,
01:29 you know, there's a lot of your identity moving forward is similar.
01:35 You have a similar foundation.
01:37 My voice doesn't sound...
01:39 I don't sound anything like any of my bandmates
01:41 and so I would have thought for sure
01:44 and then like the first line,
01:46 "I want my life to be a Whitney Houston song,"
01:48 I was like, "I am dead. These clues are too good."
01:52 But yeah, they didn't get it.
01:55 And I also thought that it was really fascinating
01:57 what you said at the end when you were unmasked.
01:59 You were like, "You know, I kind of haven't had any lessons."
02:02 What was the history behind your singing and everything?
02:05 Talk me through that.
02:06 I got into the group...
02:07 I was not trained professionally as a dancer or a singer,
02:13 so my time in the group was really...
02:17 I mean, it was just stressful the whole time.
02:22 I don't know. You have to be a kid to do that.
02:25 Because I'd be like, "Wah!" now.
02:27 I got into...
02:29 I just sang in high school. That was it.
02:32 I just like...
02:33 I trained my ear.
02:37 And there are a lot of things that I still know
02:39 that I use now as techniques that I taught myself
02:43 apart from what I've learned from coaches and things like that.
02:47 The dancing...
02:49 Nope. Never had a...
02:51 I danced jazz when I was nine.
02:54 And I only had two lessons.
02:56 Yeah, so my experience was just being underqualified all around
03:04 and showing up like an athlete every single day.
03:08 It's always up here, you know?
03:10 My dad taught me that it's in here.
03:14 It's a game.
03:14 The whole thing is a game.
03:16 Just stay in the game.
03:17 So, yeah.
03:19 It's a little different because there's so much criticism.
03:22 When I was a kid, because I was under so much pressure,
03:25 and there was such a, "Oh, those girls, they don't sing."
03:29 And I was like, "No, I do. Listen."
03:31 I was always coming from another place,
03:35 which I think young performers do.
03:37 "Hey, look. Listen to me."
03:39 If you go back and look at Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera, it's a lot.
03:44 They're like, "Let me see how much I can fit in in this one sentence."
03:47 And that's because of all that pressure
03:51 that you think as a kid, "Do more."
03:55 I didn't have a lot of space to do it anyway.
03:58 So I was lucky to do my high notes and my runs
04:02 and really, really concentrated, solid sounds.
04:07 But my voice is actually really sweet.
04:09 And so when I retrained with this woman,
04:11 we talked about, it's called the pretty box, is what she called it.
04:18 You have to have an instinct as a singer,
04:21 which everyone does, to choose the pretty box
04:24 or to go out and be super powerful, which we know you are.
04:29 So I think that removing a lot of the pressure
04:34 that I've always been under and all that criticism
04:37 that, "Oh, she can't sing," or, "Those girls don't sing."
04:40 And being like, "I'm Melody Thornton. Yes, I can. Yes, I do."
04:46 No matter what, I don't sound like any of my bandmates.
04:48 Like, come on. No, I don't.
04:50 I don't sound like Christina Aguilera.
04:52 I love her, but I don't sound like her either.
04:56 So I think it was a mind shift.
04:59 And my dad says, "What looks bad ain't always bad."
05:02 So do you feel like The Masked Singer has given you an opportunity
05:05 to show the world that you're really good?
05:08 Oh, thank you.
05:10 You know what?
05:13 I think that, like I say, my attitude is,
05:18 I have kind of the mindset of an athlete.
05:20 So it's gonna, it will play out, you know?
05:24 Like, if you are what you say you are, what you think you are,
05:27 what you're aiming for, it'll play out.
05:30 But shows like The Masked Singer, yes, have given me
05:33 the opportunity to, without judgment, and no one knows who it is,
05:38 go, "God, who was that? That was beautiful."
05:41 And then, you know, and it's like, it's not just the high notes.