Bret Michaels Is a Giant Banana

I never watched Fox’s The Masked Singer, which should really be called The Fully Costumed Singer, but I get that that title doesn’t roll of the tongue real good. But I know the show is a big hit. Wikipedia tells me this is the general premise:

“‘The Masked Singer’ is an American reality singing competition television series featuring celebrities in head-to-toe costumes and face masks that conceal their identities from other contestants, panelists, and an audience. After they perform covers of famous songs, the panelists and audience vote for their favorite performance and the celebrity with the fewest votes is eliminated from the competition, taking off their mask and revealing their identity. The Nick Cannon-hosted show employs four permanent panelists—Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg, Nicole Scherzinger, and Robin Thicke [And Sharon Osbourne?!? -Ed.] —to guess who the celebrities could be after each performs, with a guest panelist often appearing alongside them.”

Ken Jeong gave up a successful career in medicine to do this. Neat.

ANYWAY, I mention it because apparently one of the mystery celebrities this season was dressed as a giant banana…

…and on the show’s latest episode, that giant banana was revealed to be none other than Poison’s Bret Michaels.

This probably says more about me than it does about the judges, but I hear that banana singing and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s Bret Michaels.” But I get that Jenny McCarthy probably has more phrenic things to do than listen to Look What the Cat Dragged In.

This is not Michaels’ first experience with reality television. In addition to his own dating (“dating”… ha!) show, Rock of Love, he won The Celebrity Apprentice in 2010 because of COURSE Donald Trump likes this guy. They then brought him back for another season in 2013, and he was fired, and that made him cry.

Also worth noting: there is (was?) a dude named C.C. Banana, because he looked kinda like Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille and he wore a banana costume, who used to do interviews for Metal Sludge. I have no clue whose idea it was to dress Bret up as a banana and whether or not it was meant as a tribute to C.C. Banana, but I’d like to think that was.

Poison are supposed to spend their summer doing a big stadium tour* with Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Joan Jett, and Tic Tac and the Tusken Raiders, but Bret Michaels will probably take off his bandana and let us all see whatever natural hair he has left before that happens. I’m saying it’s gonna get cancelled.

*On The Masked Singer, Nick Cannon referred to it as Bret’s “stadium solo tour.” Bret did not correct him, LOL.