Messy Masked Singer Premiere: One Mask Falls Off, Another Singer Suffers Medical Emergency Mid-Song

Who was the first celebrity kicked off of Season 7 of "The Masked Singer"? — Hint, it wasn't Rudy Giuliani, so is he still in the mix?

“The Masked Singer” came roaring out of the gate with a very messy premiere episode, and that’s even without an anticipated appearance by Rudy Giuliani.

As we only saw 5 of 15 total competitors perform, he could yet be coming up in a future episode. But they certainly didn’t need the controversy of his unmasking and members of the panel storming off the stage for this to be a night of chaos.

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For the first time in “Masked Singer” history, we had one contestant literally lose their head (or mask) while they were still on stage! And then we had another contestant begin to cough and choke right at the beginning of their performance, forcing them to stop and get checked out by medical backstage.

And this is just the first night! What kind of craziness is in store for us this season?

We would like to make a request for the remaining ten contestants, who were identified by their costumes tonight rather than revealing them bit by bit in the opening weeks. We’d like to see more good singers! Tonight was “meh” at best — and that feels overly generous.

To mix things up this week, we appear to have done away with those time-consuming First Impression Guesses from the panel, and the 15 contestants have been divided into Teams: The Good, the Bad and the Cuddly.

We didn’t stick with one team tonight, though, with each team sending out representatives to battle it out. Repping Team Good, we saw Firefly and McTerrier, while Team Bad sent out Cyclops and Ram, and Team Cuddly dropped Thingamabob on the stage.

After the story broke that Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke left the stage following a Rudy Giuliani unmasking during taping of the series last month, it was anticipated he’d be the first one unmasked. Now fans are wondering if he’ll be on the show at all.

Giuliani could easily be edited out entirely, after all. We’ll just have to keep watching to see. With an even balance of five contestants on each team right now, we suspect he may still be on the show, just among those we haven’t seen perform yet. Newsweek reports that’s exactly what’s happening here.

So who had the dubious dishonor of being the first celebrity unmasked if it wasn’t Rudy Guiluiani? You’ll have to keep reading to find out!

We’ll also be sharing some of the internet’s guesses, too, so if you don’t want to be potentially spoiled (because they are very good at this), you may want to skip past the guesses sections.

Let’s jump right in with this week’s masks. And don’t worry, before we get to the shocking unmasking, we’re going to make you power through the terrible (and occasionally good) guesses made by our illustrious panel of Robin Thicke, Jenny McCarthy, Ken Jeong and Nicole Scherzinger first. We do this because we love … to torture you.

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TEAM CUDDLY: THINGAMABOB

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(“Wanted Dead or Alive,” Bon Jovi) Thingamabob came out really strong on this with a solid vocal that had Jenny convinced he was a professional singer. He had range and power and a lot of vocal control that would certainly suggest training or just a strong natural talent. We really enjoyed the rich timbre of his sound, and that little bit of gravel in his throat that worked perfectly on rock-and-roll.

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Guesses: For this week, we got kitschy “clue-mercials” in lieu of traditional clues and this one featured Nick Cannon’s masked alter ego, Bulldog, originally on the hunt for Thingamabob. It was all about donating to protect the newcomer with images including an ornament of “Hotel California,” an eagle flying over the tip jar with two quarters dropped in.

Bulldog first came out with a net and “Tackle Box,” before he and Thingamabob walked off as friends. We were told Thingamabob was taken from his natural habitat, and he shed tears from one eye while asking for donations.

Obviously, the “Hotel California” ornament and eagle take you right to the classic rock group The Eagles, which would be pretty big gets for the show. Is that Glenn Frey? It didn’t sound too much like Don Henley or Joe Walsh, but with his impressive height and size, we could see Vince Gill (6’3”) — yes, he’s performed and toured with the group several times.

Ken, though, wondered if maybe it was Metallica’s James Hetfield. The bell image on the donation jar reminds him of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” But Jenny was thinking more an athlete, with the bell perhaps targeting wrestling. She instead wondered if maybe it was WWE Hall of Famer Chris Jericho.

For Robin, though, he took the ornament to mean perhaps San Francisco and T.O. just impressing everyone with this hidden talent as a great vocalist. The internet agreed with the panel that this was likely a football player, with Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata their favorite guess.

In his rugby days, Mailata played for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, which gives you that connection to Nick’s “Masked” alter ego, and at 6’8″, he definitely towers over Nick, as Thingamabob does. But we also saw some support for our Vince Gill guess, Don Henley, Jason Aldean, Seal and a few others, so they’ve not figured this out completely just yet.

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TEAM GOOD: McTERRIER

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(“Working for the Weekend,” Loverboy) McTerrier could not see a thing, but to his credit he nevertheless did his best to put on a show. Unfortunately, he was not strong vocally at all, singing off-key and with incredibly limited range. This is obviously not a trained singer, or even a very good amateur singer. We did appreciate the dog howl at the end as that showed some personality.

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But then things went completely sideways as he stumbled at the edge of the stage and in righting himself, toppled his mask off. “What do I do?” he lamented as he turned away from the audience real quick and the panel respectfully turned away. This was certainly a new one!

Luckily, the crew came to the rescue to get his head put back on, but surely someone in that building was able to identify who it was. “He just sang his head off,” Nick quipped.

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Guesses: This clue-mercial didn’t offer much, unless there were clues in the phrasing of this infomercial for a fake blue Terry towel, like Ken thinking maybe the reference to cleaning all the way to the edge is referring to U2’s The Edge. We doubt it.

There was an exploding candle and a gold record, which has us thinking maybe this is a comedian or musician who doesn’t sing. He did some solid drumming at the top of the number, which is even more impressive once we learned he couldn’t see at all in his costume when he nearly slammed right into Nick.

There was also an axe with a star on it, as well as a cake with red icing that one of the agents smashed his face into. Not to worry, the Terry towel cleaned it right up! Tunts out “you can teach an old towel new tricks.” Get it? Like a dog? Is that a clue? Are they old?

“If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap.” McTerrier said when the panel doubted the authenticity of his accent. That got Ken Jeong thinking Mike Myers, as one of his “SNL” characters said that. He also starred in “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” which could connect to the axe.

Nicole Scherzinger, instead, connected Ewan McGregor’s candle Lumier in “Beauty and the Beast” for her unlikely suggestion. He is Scottish, but he can sing better than that. Did no one see “Moulin Rouge!”?

But Robin definitely made the worst connection, taking the flame from the candle to refer to the Red Hot Chili Peppers so he could guess Flea. There’s no way Flea wouldn’t have jumped all over that stage, blind or not.

The Twittersphere wasn’t doing much better than the panel, jumping on the bandwagon of some of their guesses, like Mike Myers, as well as tossing out a few randos of their own like Eric Stonestreet (clearly they’ve no idea what he sounds like) and Craig Ferguson — when they weren’t cracking up about that headless mishap. There was definitely no sign of a consensus.

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TEAM BAD: CYCLOPS

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(“My Sacrifice,” Creed) Cyclops delivered a competent performance, but it was by no means of the caliber that would make us think this is a professional singer. His cadence was off, and he definitely tapered off a lot toward the end of his piece. His breath control is all over the place. Luckily he picked a song that doesn’t go very many places vocally, so he was okay through the heart of it. But that’s all it was. Just okay.

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Guesses: It would be impossible to identify all the items in this cluttered bedroom scene for his “clue-mercial.” But there was a spotlight put on a compass pointing to the southeast, as well as a picture of a tortoise wearing a cowboy hat.

There was also prominent placement of a “Beware Cyclops” comic book, while a rocket launching on the wall behind him stood out a bit as well. The fake ad itself was for eye drops to battle red and dry eye, but we seriously doubt this is Ben Stein.

He told Nick he chose this character because he always connected with monsters. In fact, he was disappointed when Beast turned handsome at the end of “Beauty and the Beast.”

Jenny went with William Zabka from “Cobra Kai” and “Karate Kid,” but she was really reaching with the compass representing that he’s emotionally lost in the series. Even Nick was scrunching his face up at this stretch.

Danny McBride was Nicole’s guess, with a much stronger interpretation for the SE compass tying into his “Eastbound and Down” show. She also took comic book to reference comic actor, which isn’t bad at all. Remember when Jenny was the “clue expert”? Those were good times.

Robin, though, took the comic book to connect to DC Shoes, and the turtle to tie in to turtle racing on “Rob & Big,” so his guess is Rob Dyrdek, which isn’t a bad guess, either.

This is where the internet started speculating that maybe Rudy Giuliani was going to appear, because they did not care for this performance at all. But there were other guesses, as well, including Kid Rock, Guy Fieri … and at least one person thinks it might actually be Creed lead singer Scott Stapp. Like, he did his own song dirty like that?!

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TEAM GOOD: FIREFLY

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(“Ain’t Nobody, “Chaka Khan) Firefly came out incredibly strong, with easily the most polished and impressive vocals of the night. And we say this after only a few opening bars of this iconic song, as she began to cough and choke seconds into her performance, leading to a medical emergency that removed her from the stage. Still, we’d already seen enough to be blown away.

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Guesses: The panelists didn’t get a chance to make any guesses about her performance at this stage, but her clue package was filled with comedy clue references, as well as the Apollo and an image of Tyler Perry.

We saw a mic stand and a wooden stool on a stage in front of a red curtain, which is a classic setup for standup comedy. There was a tiny Statue of Liberty on the chair. Other images included fake space helmets with bunny ears on them as she hawked an all-compatible charger to keep her light shining bright.

For now, though, her fate on the night and in the competition were in limbo as medical checked her out backstage and the show had no choice but to move on … and so we will follow suit.

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TEAM BAD: RAM

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(“I Want You to Want Me,” Cheap Trick) Ram came out like a gladiator, with a bit of sass. He chose a good song that kept things simple for him, as he’s definitely not giving us pro singer vibes. He’s not even giving stage performer vibes, though he’s comfortable in front of people. He was definitely having fun, and he was respectably in key so hats off for a solid enough performance.

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Guesses: There were a metric ton of football and sports references, from Colts to Rams (well, that one is pretty obvious) and a “Quarter Return” piggy bank, which could easily reference a quarterback.

He also said that he’d learned everything (about “ramscaping”) from his father, suggesting this could be a legacy player. There was a referee signaling a touchdown at one point. The only thing that threw the sports metaphors a bit was the opening Theater screen with “Hamlet x Macbeth,” though that could still be a versus scenario, creating a sport-ish matchup.

He shared that he’s heard boos and cheers his entire life, but he’s used to telling stories “under these lights.” He’s worked his whole life to get to where he is now. Jenny wondered if maybe it was Jim Harbaugh, who followed his father’s footsteps to becoming a football coach.

For Ken, though, he went way “on the nose” with his guess, picking L.A. Ram Matthew Stafford, celebrating a Super Bowl win by putting on a Ram costume. We wouldn’t put anything past this show, but we’re also not really feeling that guess beyond Ken wants it to be.

Robin quickly dismissed Ken, instead latching onto Jenny’s approach, though taking Colts and Broncos and following his father to find Peyton Manning instead. “You guys are dead freaking wrong,” Ram told them — so back to the drawing board.

The internet wasn’t doing much better, though, with guesses including Stafford, as well as Manning, Tom Brady, John Cena, The Miz and tons of other guesses from the NFL and WWE. In other words, they have no clue.

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TEAM GOOD: FIREFLY (Take 2)

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(“Ain’t Nobody, “Chaka Khan) Firefly made it through her entire performance the second time, revealing a bit of grit and scratch in her voice we didn’t hear in the gentler opening lines. She’s still an incredible singer, even if this whole performance felt like it was just teasing the totality of her performance..

Guesses (cont.): Firefly revealed that she’s been performing all her life, which is obvious enough by the confidence of her subdued performance and vocal, adding that she feels amazing every time she steps on the stage.

We’re not at all on board, though, with Ken’s Alicia Keys guess because that’s not her voice, but she does have the ties to New York that he was pointing out, including a one-person show at the Apollo Theater. She just has a smoother sounding voice through her entire range.

Perhaps, though, it’s Aisha Tyler, as Jenny suggested. She fits all the comedy clues, and then she played the name game by taking it from Aisha Tyler to Tyler Perry because … why not? Vocally, though, she was hearing Monica.

Twitter was feeling the Monica guess, but only to a point. Unlike most of the others on the night, they’re actually feeling pretty confident in their guess on this one and that’s that Firefly is Teyana Taylor. There are a few stray guesses like Alicia Keys and other judge picks, but this is our biggest consensus of the night.

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UNMASKING 1

One thing’s for sure, Firefly was twice as good as anyone else tonight — and not because she started her performance twice. That’s just a world-class voice. We also felt that Thingamabob came out with a strong and confident vocal performance.

As for everyone else, though, there were definite struggles across the line. Cyclops and Ram chose songs with very limited range, which was smart, and yet the struggled even on those. Still, they were way more on key and in tune than McTerrier, who was only on key during his howl at the end.

This wasn’t a great night of singers by any stretch of the imagination, which is why Firefly ran away with the evening. Hopefully this isn’t a harbinger of things to come. We’d rather sweat which great singer might go home than wonder which bad one we can be free of next?

For this premiere, though, we’re more than ready to say goodbye to McTerrier. And of these five performers, we had a feeling the panel and fans would be as well. On a night with a pretty low bar, he managed to sink just a bit below the others.

Thankfully, the votes agreed with us and it was the end of the road for McTerrier — meaning he would have to unmask for the second time tonight. We skipped First Impression guesses tonight (is the Golden Ear trophy a relic of the past?), so it was just final guesses — and they were all terrible.

• Robin Thicke: Flea
• Jenny McCarthy: Jeff Ross
• Ken Jeong: Mike Myers
• Nicole Scherzinger: Ewan McGregor

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Well, we’re pretty sure very few people were sniffing the right trail on this one as McTerrier was revealed to be pastry chef and “Ace of Cakes” and “Cake Masters” reality star Duff Goldman.

He talked about the mask coming off, joking he feared he was going to get sued. But really, he was worried that he might have messed up the enjoyment of the whole experience for everybody. We bet that some of the people who saw his face still didn’t know who he was.

Duff was an absolute joy, though, and his fans will definitely appreciate the fun that he had on the show and how true he stayed to himself even in the face of potential disaster! Now what can be done about making sure these stars can see better than this?

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“The Masked Singer” Season 7 continues Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.

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