the masked singer dolly em rusciano

I’m 99% Sure That Dolly Is Em Rusciano On ‘The Masked Singer’

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The Masked Singer is back and do you know what that means? Time to get ready to furiously Google random celebrity trivia to convince yourself that your life has a greater purpose. It’s a good time!

Six masks performed on Monday night’s episodes and one of the standout performances had to be Dolly’s rendition of ‘Fly Away’ by Tones and I. That doll can sing!

Regarding Dolly’s identity, the judges guessed P!nk, Layne Beachley, Ronda Rousey, and Nicole Scherzinger, but viewers at home only had one name in mind: former radio presenter and Australian Idol alum, Em Rusciano.

With so many people saying Dolly was Em Rusciano, I simply had to do some digging myself — and I’m now 99% convinced it has to be her.

All the clues that point to Em Rusciano being Dolly on The Masked Singer:

(There’s obviously a small chance that I am wrong, but it is slim!)

First of all there’s the singing voice, with many viewers clocking that Dolly sounded just like Em.

Em was first discovered as a contestant on Australian Idol and has since toured with her musical comedy show all around Australia. Dolly does indeed have a similar soulful tone to Em, along with massive pipes to hit the big notes.

Here’s Em belting out Tina Arena’s ‘Chains’:

Sounds just like Dolly’s voice to me!

Now on to Dolly’s clues. “I’ve always aimed high, good enough is never good enough. Things have to be just so,” Dolly says in the teaser package. This lines up with Em, who has previously said in an interview on the WILOSOPHY podcast that, “I’m a perfectionist and I’m a little bit nutty”.

Dolly then says, “I don’t mind a bit of back and forth. In fact, I’m rather famous for it,” which could be referring to Em’s previous radio career where she would commonly face-off against celebrity interviewees… and apparently her co-hosts as well.

Dolly later admitted that, “My dreams aren’t what they used to be. I’ve been through a change and I’m definitely off the leash.” This aligns perfectly with Em quitting her 2DayFM radio show in 2018 after her most recent pregnancy. In the years since she quit, she hasn’t been shy about spilling all sorts of tea about what annoyed her about working in radio, which could allude to Em being “off the leash” now.

The clue package also featured something curious: photos of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake. These singers/actors have one thing in common: they both leant their voices to the movie Trolls and joined forces for a duet of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colors’.

the masked singer dolly em rusciano

And guess who happened to also perform a cover of this song? Em Rusciano. In Em’s case she dedicated the song to the queer community in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016.

After Dolly’s performance, they were asked, “Do you work in Australia much?” to which Dolly replied, “My earliest childhood dreams were to take on the entire world and beat them.” Again, this fits perfectly with the Em theory: Em had dreams to represent Australia in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. She wrote in Mamamia that when she was a kid, she was “a gun track athlete”:  she even won her first national title at the age of 10 and went on to be of the best hurdlers in the country in her age group.

Are you convinced yet? Viewers also reckon that the bizarre background characters seen throughout Dolly’s performance were classic Rusciano. While some of the dancers were meant to be toilet brushes, viewers and the judges reckon they looked more like dildos.

This is all extremely on-brand. Em’s live shows have previously featured bizarre costumes and even dancing vulvas.

I truly hope the vulvas make a cameo on next week’s show!

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The Masked Singer returns tonight at 7:30pm on Channel 10.