Emma Watkins spills on secret plan to throw Masked Singer panel off

She wowed viewers with her incredible voice and stage presence as Zombie, but Emma Watkins was unable to hide her identity on The Masked Singer and ended up being guessed by a number of people online.

Chrissie Swan, who had correctly guessed that Jamie Durie was Tiger on Sunday night, also managed to work out that it was Emma behind the Zombie mask after piecing together the cryptic clue package.

The Masked Singer's Emma Watkins and Abbie Chatfield.
Emma Watkins was unmasked as Zombie on The Masked Singer. Photos: Channel Ten

Chatting with Yahoo Lifestyle following her elimination, the former Yellow Wiggle admits that she tried her best to trick the guessing panel and confuse fans.

One tactic she used was posting old photos on social media from a different location, which lead Abbie Chatfield to believe that Emma was actually in Queenstown, New Zealand during filming.

“I was trying to throw her off because I thought, the judges are just so well researched this season,” she says. “They’re so invested in finding really good matches for the clues that are presented.

“Mel has her dossier, Chrissie’s got such a great knowledge and Hughesy’s just a classic, but Abbie was so savvy with social media that I thought, ‘I’ll just pretend I'm in New Zealand and then maybe she won’t know’. But no, that was not going to fly with her, she was way too onto it.”

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Emma adds that although she tried to change the sound of her voice, she simply couldn’t because she was “so concerned” about what she was singing.

“For some reason, I thought maybe the song and the costume would be so distracting that you wouldn't know it was me,” she remarks.

“I think there were moments where I really was trying to affect it and I think having the character as the Zombie made that really accessible because I could lean into the character. But even when I watched it last night with my sister, who didn't know, I could pick my voice straightaway and I realised that I didn't really accomplish changing my voice very much.

“I think lots of people, especially parents and grandparents that may have listened to my voice over the last decade, they know it really well. They know it better than I do! So people were already engaging in my social media about a week ago when the show started and I thought, ‘Oh no, I'm not going to get very far’.”

The Masked Singer’s Emma Watkins.
‘I thought maybe the song and the costume would be so distracting that you wouldn't know it was me.’ Photo: Channel Ten

Cryptic clues

While Emma agrees that some parts of the clue package were “quite obvious”, including the fruit references and inclusion of the colour yellow, she explains that one of her favourite clues was rather obscure.

“One of the clues last week had a headstone with Queen Victoria on it, and my mum actually just loves Queen Victoria,” she reveals.

“It's obviously a very strange pastime, but she dresses up as Queen Victoria at a museum and takes tours, so there's a very little amount of people that would know that about my mother and I think she got an absolute thrill seeing Queen Victoria on the headstone.”

The children’s entertainer went on to say that she is so grateful for her experience and she had an incredible time on the show, mainly because it was something so different to her normal routine.

“Being in children's entertainment is such a specific category, which I adore,” she says. “And so when the opportunity came up I was like, ‘Yes! I would love to try that!’. It's something that I haven't done for a very long time.

“Before I joined The Wiggles I did heaps of character work growing up and when I was at university, and so to be this character was something quite special and a little bit nostalgic.”

The Masked Singer continues tonight at 7:30pm on Ten.

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