‘The Masked Singer’ Shocker: Mickey Rourke Unmasks Himself Before He’s Even Eliminated

If you’re going to cast Mickey Rourke on your reality show, be prepared for him to break the rules. Last night, the veteran actor did just that on The Masked Singer when he removed his Gremlin head long before he was even eliminated. The Mickey Rourke Masked Singer reveal stunned the judges and host Nick Cannon, who freely admitted that he’d lost control of the episode. “I don’t know what’s happening,” said Cannon. “This is a Masked Singer first.”

Fox has spent weeks teasing The Masked Singer‘s off-the-rails episode, but last night, fans finally got a chance to see the chaos for themselves. Season 4 Episode 2 introduced viewers to six new costumed stars, Crocodile, Seahorse, Gremlin, Whatchamacallit, Serpent, and Baby Alien, but it didn’t take long for Group B to become a man down. At the end of the evening, Gremlin — whose clue package revealed he was a “combative” personality with a “checkered history” — performed “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King, and his deep vocals prompted the judges to guess a variety of different figures, from “Stone Cold” Steve Austin to Jerry Lee Lewis (in a rare turn, Jenny McCarthy actually guessed Mickey Rourke correctly).

However, before they could even finish guessing, the Gremlin unmasked itself. “I want to take this off right now,” he told Cannon, who explained that the contestant was “too damn hot” under his furry head. “Gremlin, you can’t do — that’s not part of the show,” said The Masked Singer host. “No! No!” yelled the judging panel. “What is happening?!”

But the Gremlin was undeterred. After some heavily-dramatized struggling, the contestant pulled off his head to reveal… a very sweaty Mickey Rourke.

“Man, you’re such a legend. What would make you do The Masked Singer?” asked Cannon. “I was in the neighborhood,” replied Rourke, blasé as ever. “I do like the show. I watched like four episodes when they asked me, ‘Would you be interested?’ So I watched, like, from the very beginning and all that shit.”

The Masked Singer airs every Wednesday at 8/7c on Fox.

Where to stream The Masked Singer