The iconic tennis player, a longtime friend of Sir Elton, got the chance to perform the song he wrote for her, "Philadelphia Freedom," before being unmasked during The Masked Singer's "Elton John" night.
Billie Jean King is the latest contestant to be unmasked on The Masked Singer.
The tennis star competed as the Royal Hen Wednesday, facing off against The Hawk, The Husky, and The Tiki, in a special episode that paid tribute to music icon, Sir Elton John.
While the whole episode was done in celebration of the “Rocket Man” singer, King took the moment to make a special nod to the musician and her longtime friend by singing the song he wrote for her while competing on the show.
Belting out “Philadelphia Freedom,” judges Robin Thicke, Jenny McCarthy, Ken Jeong and Nicole Scherzinger all struggled to guess who could be under that pirate-inspired hen costume. The one thing they were sure about, however, was that under all those feathers, there was an icon.
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“That was such a fun performance, and I just feel like there’s a legend underneath that mask,” Jeong said after the Royal Hen’s song.
As a clue, The Royal Hen also revealed that she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
After all the contestants had the chance to sing their favorite Elton track, it was time for the audience to vote — and after all the votes were counted, The Royal Hen and The Hawk wound up having to face off in a Smackdown Round, with each singing different verses of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”
After a rousing back-and-forth, in the end, it was The Royal Hen who got the axe.
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Before unmasking, the panel made their final guesses, with Jeong the only one among the panel to guess that the Royal Hen was in fact the trailblazing tennis legend.
King unmasked to the shock and delight of both the judges and the audience, and spoke with host Nick Cannon about her experience on the show.
“It was great, but it is so hot! I’m sweating bullets!,” King exclaimed before sharing the history behind her song choice Wednesday night.
“‘I am really lucky. He said, ‘I want to write you a song, and I’m like, ‘What? What?’ And then he goes, ‘What are we gonna call it?’ I go, ‘I don’t know.’ And he says, ‘What about Philadelphia Freedom? I go, ‘That would be the greatest gift to the people of Philadelphia if you would do that,” the 39-time Grand Slam title winner recalled.
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In addition to paying homage to the city of Brotherly Love, the song doubled as the name of King’s World Team Tennis club, the Philadelphia Freedoms, who John would often go and support as an avid fan of King’s in the 1970s.
The song still holds a special place, not just for King, but for the city it was named after too.
She continued, “And if you got to Philadelphia, everybody’s still playing it. It’s their anthem.”
The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
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