00:00 It's just stressful the whole time.
00:02 I don't sound anything like any of my bandmates.
00:05 It's like...
00:05 Melody Thornton, it is so good to see you.
00:09 The Masked Singer is the best thing.
00:11 You find yourself sitting there watching an air fryer singing
00:13 and a maypole and you think, "What is my Saturday night?"
00:17 Yeah, it's crazy.
00:18 The costumes are so wacky, but then every now and then,
00:22 then there are these great voices coming out of some of them
00:25 and then some of them are just having...
00:28 Oh, we're all having so much fun.
00:29 I had to come up with so many different stories for her.
00:32 Her family were turned into boxes of matches
00:34 and one of her family members was a baseball bat
00:39 and so it's like on the outside, she's really shiny and pretty,
00:42 but on the inside, she's sad.
00:44 We love her and so do the judges
00:46 and I have to ask you about performing Rita Ora's song
00:49 in front of Rita Ora.
00:51 Babe, that is brave.
00:53 Were you really nervous?
00:54 Because you actually sounded like her at times.
00:57 I think amongst ourselves, I mean, I'm not going to go on and on
01:01 about the patriarchy, but amongst ourselves,
01:04 I feel like women are always being pitted against each other,
01:06 even if it's meant to honour somebody or it's a bit of fun
01:10 and so I just wanted her to know that.
01:12 I was like...
01:13 I did get some Pussycat Dolls, but I didn't get the right one.
01:18 Right, right. Everybody bought me.
01:20 I was like...
01:20 Okay. Yeah, I mean, there were so many things that...
01:26 But I think that's the thing about a group is like,
01:29 you know, there's a lot of your identity moving forward is similar.
01:35 You have a similar foundation.
01:37 My voice doesn't sound...
01:39 I don't sound anything like any of my bandmates
01:41 and so I would have thought for sure
01:44 and then like the first line,
01:46 "I want my life to be a Whitney Houston song,"
01:48 I was like, "I am dead. These clues are too good."
01:52 But yeah, they didn't get it.
01:55 And I also thought that it was really fascinating
01:57 what you said at the end when you were unmasked.
01:59 You were like, "You know, I kind of haven't had any lessons."
02:02 What was the history behind your singing and everything?
02:05 Talk me through that.
02:06 I got into the group...
02:07 I was not trained professionally as a dancer or a singer,
02:13 so my time in the group was really...
02:17 I mean, it was just stressful the whole time.
02:22 I don't know. You have to be a kid to do that.
02:25 Because I'd be like, "Wah!" now.
02:27 I got into...
02:29 I just sang in high school. That was it.
02:32 I just like...
02:33 I trained my ear.
02:37 And there are a lot of things that I still know
02:39 that I use now as techniques that I taught myself
02:43 apart from what I've learned from coaches and things like that.
02:47 The dancing...
02:49 Nope. Never had a...
02:51 I danced jazz when I was nine.
02:54 And I only had two lessons.
02:56 Yeah, so my experience was just being underqualified all around
03:04 and showing up like an athlete every single day.
03:08 It's always up here, you know?
03:10 My dad taught me that it's in here.
03:14 It's a game.
03:14 The whole thing is a game.
03:16 Just stay in the game.
03:17 So, yeah.
03:19 It's a little different because there's so much criticism.
03:22 When I was a kid, because I was under so much pressure,
03:25 and there was such a, "Oh, those girls, they don't sing."
03:29 And I was like, "No, I do. Listen."
03:31 I was always coming from another place,
03:35 which I think young performers do.
03:37 "Hey, look. Listen to me."
03:39 If you go back and look at Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera, it's a lot.
03:44 They're like, "Let me see how much I can fit in in this one sentence."
03:47 And that's because of all that pressure
03:51 that you think as a kid, "Do more."
03:55 I didn't have a lot of space to do it anyway.
03:58 So I was lucky to do my high notes and my runs
04:02 and really, really concentrated, solid sounds.
04:07 But my voice is actually really sweet.
04:09 And so when I retrained with this woman,
04:11 we talked about, it's called the pretty box, is what she called it.
04:18 You have to have an instinct as a singer,
04:21 which everyone does, to choose the pretty box
04:24 or to go out and be super powerful, which we know you are.
04:29 So I think that removing a lot of the pressure
04:34 that I've always been under and all that criticism
04:37 that, "Oh, she can't sing," or, "Those girls don't sing."
04:40 And being like, "I'm Melody Thornton. Yes, I can. Yes, I do."
04:46 No matter what, I don't sound like any of my bandmates.
04:48 Like, come on. No, I don't.
04:50 I don't sound like Christina Aguilera.
04:52 I love her, but I don't sound like her either.
04:56 So I think it was a mind shift.
04:59 And my dad says, "What looks bad ain't always bad."
05:02 So do you feel like The Masked Singer has given you an opportunity
05:05 to show the world that you're really good?
05:08 Oh, thank you.
05:10 You know what?
05:13 I think that, like I say, my attitude is,
05:18 I have kind of the mindset of an athlete.
05:20 So it's gonna, it will play out, you know?
05:24 Like, if you are what you say you are, what you think you are,
05:27 what you're aiming for, it'll play out.
05:30 But shows like The Masked Singer, yes, have given me
05:33 the opportunity to, without judgment, and no one knows who it is,
05:38 go, "God, who was that? That was beautiful."
05:41 And then, you know, and it's like, it's not just the high notes.
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