The Masked Singer’s Doll rocked out and had one of the most epic unmaskings during the April 5 episode. Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider was revealed as the one and only Doll. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with the heavy metal icon about why he decided to do the show.
“Actually, I didn’t,” the 68-year-old admitted. “It’s a lot like Sharknado. They asked me during the first season and I said, ‘This is never going to work. No, thank you.’ And then we get to season 9, and they’re like, ‘Now do you want to do it?’ I’m like, ‘I guess I kind of have to.’ All my managers and agents were like, ‘You gotta do The Masked Singer. It’s a good thing.’ And then I was like, ‘Okay, cool. Let’s do it.’ It was nice to be asked back after I said no the first time.”
Dee donned the Doll costume for two performances on The Masked Singer. He revealed that it was more “difficult” than he previously thought. “Mad props to the band Slipknot who perform with masks on every single night. I really don’t think they show that enough to the audience to help them understand,” Dee said. “You get some comments from people, most famously Bill Shatner. He was like, “Thank God I’m out of that thing.” But it’s really very difficult, disorienting, and it’s not in your comfort zone at all. It’s tough.”
During his performances as the Doll, Dee wore massive pumps. This was clearly a nod to his past with Twisted Sister. “In the early days of Twisted Sister, I used to wear pumps like that on stage every night run and around like a lunatic,” Dee told HollywoodLife. “Even to the end of Twisted Sister, which was many years ago now, I still wore like 5-inch heels. These were really thin. They were pumps, and they were precarious. Once I started getting out on the stage, I was like, ‘Oh, wait a second. This is a lot of stage here. There are gaps. There are wires. There are all sorts of things that increase the degree of difficulty.’ But I’m proud. I stood tall literally.
As soon as Dee saw the Doll costume, he was all for it. “It’s a bit of a giveaway with a Twisted Sister, isn’t it? But apparently not. Well, that’s not necessarily true because I was the odds-on favorite in Vegas as to who the Doll was. I think it was my legs that gave me away,” he said.
The Twisted Sister icon is gearing up for a busy year ahead. “I’ve dedicated the last few decades to developing my craft and my first fictional novel is coming out on May 22,” Dee revealed. “I have a graphic novel called He’s Not Going To Take It from Z2 Comics coming out in June. So I’ve got those two things, and I’m headed over to Germany for some sort of all-star tour that’s going on. I feel like it’s like what they say about sharks. If they stop swimming, they die. Even though I’m in semi-retirement, I’ve still got to keep swimming a little bit. I’ve got a lot of things going on but different things. I’m going to be directing the first movie that I wrote, things like that.”