The Masked Singer’s Coral never thought fans would guess her so fast — but honestly, we saw it coming
Fox's 'The Masked Singer' Season 13 recently concluded with Gretchen Wilson, aka masked singer Pearl, being crowned the winner. However, throughout its run, the season stunned fans with unexpected singers concealing their identity beneath extravagant costumes. But that wasn't the case with Meg Donnelly, who expressed her disbelief at how quickly fans figured out her identity as Coral. But can we really blame them? Additionally, the actress also revealed a secret alliance with fellow contestant Paparazzo, even though she was unaware of his real identity.
For her final performance, Donnelly sang 'Moon River' by Audrey Hepburn, prompting Judge Rita Ora to praise her for her "patience and grace." In a heartfelt surprise, Donnelly also received a voice message from her father, who said he was "so proud" of her and that "her living her dreams was all a dad could ask for." Donnelly became emotional hearing it and shared that the show helped her "become more confident in [her] singing." The final clue shown was a cheerleader's uniform, making Ora correctly guess it was Donnelly, as per Entertainment Now.
Although only Ora guessed her identity correctly, Donnelly was stunned, as she revealed in an interview with ScreenRant, saying, "I was really, really shocked when Rita guessed me at the end. I definitely did not think she was going to." But what surprised her more was how fast her fans figured it out, as she said, "I'm even more surprised by the Internet. I can't believe right away they knew. I really thought no one was going to know who I was, so I'm really shocked." Donnelly also revealed that she and Paparazzo, who was revealed to be Matthew Lawrence, formed an unspoken alliance during the competition.
She said, "It's crazy 'cause you really don't know anybody. But it was really funny because me and Paparazzo had this unspoken alliance together, and we were like, even though we didn't know who we were, and we couldn't talk to each other, we had this friendship bond, [and] we were like if you need [anything] ... We were just like unspokenly supporting each other. It was really funny [laughs]." The 'Zombies' actress also revealed that despite the show's strict secrecy, she actively tried to guess the identities of her fellow contestants by paying close attention to conversations and video packages during filming. Although she couldn't confirm her guesses at the time, she felt confident they were mostly correct and believes she did a good job once the show aired.
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Donnelly also revealed that she loved performing as Coral, saying, "It was so much fun. I feel like when they showed the design for the costume, it made me like 10,000 times more excited." Donnelly also talked about choosing a wide mix of emotional ballads and upbeat songs, saying, "I feel like throughout the whole show we really wanted the songs to kind of go up and down to kind of serve different parts of being able to perform."
She further added, "'Mad World' was really dramatic. So is 'What Was I Made For?' So is 'Moon River.' My costume was one of the only ones that was super mobile. So I feel like I could kind of walk around and move. And I love dancing. So I was like, 'I would love to incorporate that'." Donnelly was flattered by the panelists' wrong guesses, which included names like Bebe Rexha, Hailee Steinfeld, Sabrina Carpenter, and Hilary Duff. She shared, "I thought they were amazing. I feel like every person they said I felt really shocked and complimented by it... especially all the Disney people... Just being compared to all of these amazing, legendary Disney people was just kind of surreal."