Jenifer Lewis on her ‘triumphant testimony’ as Miss Cleocatra on ‘The Masked Singer’: ‘The bitch is back!’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I have a very triumphant testimony now,” says actress Jenifer Lewis, who was unmasked as Miss Cleocatra on “The Masked Singer” Thursday night. “I was nearly killed in Africa. I fell. So, the bitch is back! With that out of the way, ‘Masked Singer’ called me and I couldn’t walk at the time. So my friends encouraged me, ‘Get up and go do what you love to do.’ And ‘The Masked Singer’ took care of me.” Watch her exclusive video interview with Gold Derby senior editor Denton Davidson above.
Lewis reveals that if viewers look closely, she’s bolted down as she performs. “I’m not using the lower half of my body,” she explains. “They had bolted me to the floor in a harness. In the second song, you’ll notice I don’t let go of the microphone, which is bolted down. So they really disguised the injury and worked with me on that. But baby, when somebody asks me to sing in front of a live audience, it’s over!”
As Miss Cleocatra, Lewis sang “Stormy Weather” by Etta James on “The Wizard of Oz Night” and “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue on “Girl Group Night.” She was knocked out of the competition by Seal in their smackdown of TLC‘s “Waterfalls.” Of the four panelists, only Ken Jeong was able to correctly guess Lewis was behind the mask. Rita Ora thought she was Grammy winner Roberta Flack, while both Robin Thicke and Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg guessed actress Loretta Devine.
Although Lewis’ Miss Cleocatra won’t go up on “The Masked Singer” Hall of Fame wall, the performer is happy to settle for her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “It was fun to get voted off,” she admits. “I still had a little morphine in me, so I was nodding off and going, ‘I’m going home? What? What’s going on? Who did that?’ I didn’t care. I had a chance to have fun. They put Jenifer Lewis in a mask. That in itself is history!”