Spoiler alert! Before reading this article, for anyone who hasn’t seen the latest episode of The Masked Dancer, a contest’s identity is revealed.
The Masked Singer spinoff The Masked Dancer has been filled with surprise after surprise. Some contestants have shone brightly while others have not lived up to their full potential. After the surprise elimination of Ice Cube in Episode 2, it was Moth’s turn to say goodbye as the character was eliminated in Episode 3. While their elimination was bittersweet, Moth gave the reason why they agreed to compete in the dance competition series.
Much like the surprise of Bill Nye being Ice Cube in Episode 2, Moth’s identity was an even bigger surprise. It turned out Moth was child safety activist and media personality Elizabeth Smart. After her reveal, the child safety activist, who initially gained recognition after being abducted in 2002, discussed her run on The Masked Dancer. In the interview with TVLine, she explained how the events of 2020 pushed her to accept the offer.
And 2020, I think, most people would say was a pretty hard year, and I certainly would be among them. 2020 was the year I do not care to repeat and when this opportunity came, after getting over my initial ‘Are you serious?’ thinking, I thought, ‘Why not?’ I live a pretty serious life. I work in an incredibly serious and frightening field and I think it's OK to have fun, to do something that's purely light-hearted.
The child safety activist also explained how losing a close family member pushed her to continue with the competition series. She cited her grandmother’s boundless enthusiasm as a source of inspiration.
As I was doing it, it just felt like a tribute to my grandmother because she would have loved it. She probably would have wanted to be up on stage dancing with me and if not dancing with me, she would've been in the front row, probably screaming at everyone, ‘That's my granddaughter! Do you know who my granddaughter is? That's her!’ She would've loved it.
Elizabeth Smart had lost her grandmother right before receiving the offer. While her participation in The Masked Dancer may have surprising, her reasons for doing it came from a sweet and endearing place. Unfortunately, her elimination was only the second one for the spinoff series after Bill Nye’s.
In recent years, Elizabeth Smart has made sporadic television appearances. From 2015 to 2018, she was a correspondent for the syndicated true-crime series Crime Watch Daily. In 2017, she narrated and produced a Lifetime film based on her abduction case. She has mostly focused on her organization Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which seeks to end sexual exploitation and abuse. She currently lives a nice quiet life with her husband and three children.
If you want to see more surprise reveals, unexpected moments and who the judges get right, make sure to check out The Masked Dancer every Wednesday at 8 pm on Fox.
