Host of “Masked Singer” Walks Off Stage After Rudy Giuliani Revealed As Secret Singer

Let me try and say this before I get into this particular blog entry: I rarely write about so-called “reality tv” shows and other frivolous aspects of our celebrity obsessed culture. Obviously, I heard about “the slap heard ‘round the world” a few weeks ago, and found myself strangely shocked and but did not want to add to the discussion surrounding it, one way or the other. These are things that just aren’t my cup of tea.  

Why?  

Because it is my belief that the excessive fixation on celebrities, following their every move and everything that they do, is detracting from our intelligence, quite frankly. We see celebrity segments on what passes for the “news” these days. It is difficult to see how this actually qualifies as news at all. It has no relevance to most of our lives. And again, it feels to me like it is lulling us collectively to sleep. We fixate on celebrities who are completely fixated on their image and retaining their physical beauty and their career interests and insecurities and their money interests, more than anything, their sense of importance and apparent superiority over the rest of us mere mortals.  

So now, I try not to engage in that kind of bullshit. Pardon my crassness here, but sometimes, you need to call a spade a spade.  

That said, I was pleasantly surprised by something last night, which I happened on accidentally while perusing through my personal Facebook page. It was how one of the host judges for the show “The Masked Singer,” Ken Jeong, simply said “I’m done,” and then walked off, after it was revealed that the surprise singer was none other than former New Yok Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.  

This was a refreshing change, to see someone – a celebrity with possibly something to lose by taking such an action – nevertheless walk off after seeing somebody who he neither respects nor likes. Remember, Giuliani was a highly controversial figure during the Trump years. He infamously argued about the alleged massive voter fraud that effectively stole the election from Trump, except where it counted the most. That’s right, in the courtrooms, when he and other Trump lawyers would be under oath, and thus held accountable for lying, they made a point of saying that they were not making a case for massive voter fraud. Somehow, Trump and his legion of followers seemed to conveniently gloss over that inconvenient fact.  

And let us not forget Giuliani’s role in the January 6th riot in Washington. He once again asserted his lies about a stolen election. In other words, he did his part to try and mislead and fire up the assembled crowd of blind Trump supporters, many of whom would shortly prove to have violent intentions.  

So Giuliani’s presence is no laughing matter. He is an extremely polarizing figure, and should rightly be viewed as a pariah. Much like it was problematic when we saw many celebrities, like Jimmy Fallon, normalize Trump, it would be very problematic – arguably more problematic since it is now after the fact, and we know what they ate guilty of – for such a prominent and visible member of the Trump clan to be accepted on a celebrity “reality show.”  

Of course, that seems to be the trend with controversial American politicians these days. Tom Delay, a real  corrupt scumbag if ever there was one, tried to rebuild his image by showing a friendlier, more playful side when he participated in Dancing With the Stars. Rick Perry and Sean Spicer, both former members of the Trump White House, also followed in those footsteps some years later.  

Evidently, this is more or less what Giuliani was trying to do, as well. He was making an appearance to presumably show a more fun and lighthearted side to him.  

Fuck that.  

Again, apologies for the crassness, but Giuliani and Trump are no ordinary politicians. They got away with far too much for far too long, especially with the Capitol riot that sure seemed like a coup attempt to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after the election. They could not win the arguments to persuaded enough Americans to vote for them, and had even less success in the court cases following the election. So they just decided to go ahead and urge an unruly and, again, violent mob to take over the Capitol building and interrupt the electoral process. Some in that unruly crowd even seemed to favor hanging Vice-President Mike Pence.  

That is criminal, and those behind it, which includes both Trump and Giuliani, should be held accountable. It is no laughing matter, and Ken Jeong was absolutely right to put a limit to the lightheartedness and frivolousness of Hollywood celebrity culture. There really needs to be some limits at some point, even though there usually is an absence of limits.  

Giuliani is not just another celebrity who we should smile at and marvel at his singing voice. He lied and lied and lied to the American people. Hell, he misled his own supporters, constantly claiming that there was proof of massive voter fraud, while again, refusing to make that argument in court, knowing full well that it would end badly if he pushed his lies and conspiracy theories while under oath, when he would be held accountable.  

So after reading about this, and seeing a bit of the video, I am glad that Ken Jeong did not simply smile and laugh and play along, as if it is not problematic that someone like Giuliani should be celebrated and given the spotlight and adoration of the crowd. He deserves to be in prison, not on some stupid, albeit apparently popular, television show. For once, we glimpse a bit of celebrity culture where someone finally had enough, even if it is only one man (for now). 

It is not just because somebody happens to be famous that they deserve to be celebrated, to be cheered admiringly by a crowd indifferent to the horrible reasons why this or that person is famous for. All of that is utter nonsense. It matters that Giuliani has disgraced the nation and hurt American democracy. It matters that he tried to pass off some enormous lies and misleading information as the full story, and fired up a mob-like crowd to storm the Capitol building in a scene quite unlike any other in American history. And hopefully, it might matter to some people that a famous person did not merely smile and pretend that this was all okay, that we should perhaps admire this man because he apparently can sing a little bit, while ignoring all of that other stuff. Part of the reason why we Americans are so divided at the moment is that we have been actively conditioned to shy away from any kind of serious political discourse, and that this has led to Americans being unable to accept that others may have very different viewpoints than we do. That is what leads to somewhere between one-third to nearly one-half of the voting population increasingly showing an unwillingness to simply believe that their candidate, or their party, could actually lose an election. Than, corrupt manipulators like Giuliani and his boss, King Con Don, actively try to foster this doubt and attempt a coup. It hardly matters that it did not succeed this last time around. Next time - and yes, I am predicting that there will indeed be a next time - it might make January 6th look like a training exercise by way of comparison. Comedian Bill Maher talked about it, and at some point, he said that it felt like January 6th was actually more of a test run, to see how we Americans would react. When they try it again, having had a little trial and error under their belt, they might know how to be much more effective. 

So when I see Americans, especially high profile Americans with presumably much to lose by taking an action like Jeong did in this case, it is encouraging. Who cares if a celebrity like Will Smith lost his cool and took a joke the wrong way, even if it was on national television. The ramifications from that, and whether or not Smith's career will end, or how badly it will be impacted, has zero relevance to my life. But when a "celebrity" like Giuliani and his boss, King Con Don, try to undermine democracy and ultimately usurp Washington? That I do care about. And it is nice to see that many Americans still also care, that they understand that this was no laughing matter, regardless of how playful or innocent Giuliani tried to pass himself off on the show. I applaud Ken Jeong for taking a stand.