Janel Parrish efficiently hid her id from the panelists all through season 10 of The Masked Singer, however there was one group who couldn’t be fooled: Fairly Little Liars followers.
Parrish, 35, who performed Mona on the Freeform teen drama, solely informed Us Weekly that PLL viewers shortly suspected she was behind the Gazelle masks after digging up previous clips of Mona singing on the present.
“I saw a hilarious comment from one of the PLL fans,” she recalled forward of the Wednesday, December 20, season finale. “They were like, ‘You can’t hide, Mona, we know it’s you!’ I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ Those PLL fans, they’re little sleuths! They know what’s up. … There’s a whole network of PLL fans who were like, ‘We know it’s you, Mona!’”
One in every of Gazelle’s clue packages included a check paper with an A-minus on it, main savvy viewers to suspect that Parrish was behind the masks. (Mona was the unique A on PLL, which ran from 2010 to 2017.)
Parrish’s household, nonetheless, didn’t want the clues to determine it was her. Contestants on The Masked Singer are sworn to utmost secrecy about their participation within the present, however no quantity of denial may persuade Parrish’s aunt that she wasn’t Gazelle.
“She said she thought that it was my voice, but then when she saw my mannerisms, even as Gazelle with the filter on my voice, she knew that it was me just from my body mannerisms,” Parrish informed Us. “I did a lot of lying — apparently some bad lying to some family members who were like, ‘I know you’re lying, but it’s fine, you probably can’t tell me.’”
Whereas followers primarily know Parrish as an actress from her roles in PLL and the To All of the Boys I’ve Cherished Earlier than movie franchise, she’s additionally labored in musical theater, showing in productions of Grease and Spring Awakening.
“My first job ever was as Little Cosette on Broadway in Les Misérables,” she informed Us. “I thought that my career would become theater because I was a kid and I thought that’s where the course of my life was going to take me, and as fate had it, it led more toward TV and film, and as that happened, I did less and less singing. So, it sort of became a little bit of a fear and a vulnerability. Like, ‘I was a kid singer — am I still a singer?’”
After making it to the season finale alongside musical heavyweights Ne-Yo and Macy Grey, Parrish can relaxation assured that she’s nonetheless obtained it. (She was the one contestant to be saved this season by the “ding dong keep it on” bell, which means her efficiency so impressed the judges that they didn’t need her to go dwelling the evening she was initially set to be eradicated.)
“This show really gave me the opportunity to conquer that fear anonymously, with no preconceived notions about who I am or what I do or whether or not I am a singer,” Parrish gushed to Us. “I got to come out and sing and find my voice and find that courage, and I was met with nothing but love and positivity. It gave me so much confidence to be able to sort of say, ‘You know what? I am a singer.’ And that meant so much to me. I just feel so grateful that this show gave me the stage to do what I love in a very non-scary way by coming out as this creature and seeing what happened.”
After The Masked Singer, Parrish is targeted on producing “some really fun projects that are near and dear” to her coronary heart, however she’s additionally pondering it may be time to plot a return to her musical roots.
“I kind of hope that I can go back to doing some music stuff like I did when I was a kid,” she informed Us. “To go back to Broadway as an adult would be a dream come true.”