{"id":2358011,"date":"2026-04-04T04:32:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T04:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2358011"},"modified":"2026-04-04T04:32:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T04:32:34","slug":"snl-hurt-this-pop-star-winning-the-masked-singer-helps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/snl-hurt-this-pop-star-winning-the-masked-singer-helps\/","title":{"rendered":"‘SNL’ hurt this pop star. Winning ‘The Masked Singer’ helps"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After a major national debacle on live TV when she was only 20 years old, Ashlee Simpson Ross finally found a way to win back a small-screen audience\u2019s love: She put a galaxy mask over her head and let the vocals rip. <\/p>\n

Forget that 2004 incident where she got caught singing over a backing track in an appearance on \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d Sure, she did a weird little dance, then fled the set. Sure, her dad made excuses. But that\u2019s in the past. <\/p>\n

The winner of \u201cThe Masked Singer,\u201d who is married to Evan Ross, Diana Ross\u2019 singer-actor son<\/a>, was bubbly as she celebrated her victory in a post-finale interview published Wednesday night. On the season finale, she had sung Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s tune \u201cGood 4 U.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I became Galaxy Girl<\/a> and I had the best team ever,\u201d Simpson told People<\/a>. \u201cSo I mean, it felt great to do it. It felt great to perform, not being able to see where I\u2019m going. You can hardly see where you\u2019re going. I think just becoming that character of Galaxy Girl and people not knowing who I was, it was just a different way of performing that. I enjoyed that. It was definitely a moment of discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in fall 2004, Simpson, who\u2019s now 41, was about to do her second song as the musical guest on \u201cSNL.\u201d Following in her famous sister\u2019s footsteps as Jessica Simpson\u2019s newlyweds reality show with then-husband Nick Lachey was hitting its stride, she had just released what would become the year\u2019s top-selling album by a female singer. <\/p>\n

Then the band started up \u2014 and the wrong lyrics started playing out of the ether. Simpson was not singing them<\/a>. So she did an uncomfortable sort of jig<\/a> before walking off the set and leaving the band stranded. Cut to commercial. <\/p>\n

Lorne Michaels would confirm later that it had been a first for the sketch show. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can I say? Live TV,\u201d host Jude Law told the audience during the show\u2019s goodbye sequence that night. Simpson, standing at his side, jumped in with a rapid-fire explanation of what had just happened, throwing her band under the bus and not making much sense at all. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so bad. My band started playing the wrong song and I didn\u2019t know what to do, so I thought I\u2019d do a hoedown. I\u2019m sorry!\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

This was a year after her sister had asked, with cameras rolling, whether a can of Chicken of the Sea contained tuna or chicken, and whether Buffalo wings were made out of buffalo<\/a>. So what stuck in people\u2019s minds were those lyrics playing out of the ether. Ashlee Simpson, it was clear, intended to lip sync, which sort of implied to casual observers that she couldn\u2019t sing. She became, to many, a laughingstock. <\/p>\n

Her dad said afterward that acid reflux had made her vocal cords swell, necessitating the last-minute switch from live to Memorex. He called it a learning experience and said she would prove herself in future shows. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, that happened to us on Saturday, so just like every other artist in America she has backing tracks … so you don\u2019t have to hear her croaking through a song on national television,\u201d Joe Simpson told Ryan Seacrest in a radio interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe never used them before,\u201d he said of the vocal tracks, but \u201cyou have to do what you have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few months later, she was booed on national TV when she did the halftime show at the 2005 Orange Bowl. Folks joked that it was worse than what happened on \u201cSNL.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, yes, her career continued, but it hasn\u2019t been 100% smooth. After a couple more albums, she took a role in a Broadway musical and eventually she returned to acting. She said over and over that she was going to get back into music, but life kept getting in the way. <\/p>\n

Then in 2025, after celebrating the 20-year anniversary of her breakout album release with a short gig at a WeHo nightclub the year prior, she announced a residency at the Venetian in Las Vegas<\/a>. The gig proved popular enough that it was extended into 2026.<\/p>\n

And over the course of \u201cThe Masked Singer\u201d season, Simpson finally proved to those casual observers that she has a voice and knows how to use it. She even bested her husband, who competed this season as Stingray and was cast out in Episode 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerforming is my happy place, and to be doing that again just feels so nice,\u201d she told People. \u201cI\u2019m inspired to keep playing shows and creating new music. And moments like \u2018Masked Singer\u2019 and Vegas, and I\u2019m looking forward to Pride and Stagecoach \u2014 those moments just make me realize, \u2018Oh, this is what I love to do.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to be doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good for you, Galaxy Girl. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a major national debacle on live TV when she was only 20 years old, Ashlee Simpson Ross finally found a way to win back a small-screen audience\u2019s love: She put a galaxy mask over her head and let the vocals rip. Forget that 2004 incident where she got caught singing over a backing track […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2358012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2358011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SNL-hurt-this-pop-star-Winning-The-Masked-Singer-helps.com2Fd62F222F80d1c4f246c097feeabb4539.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2358011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2358013,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358011\/revisions\/2358013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2358012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2358011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2358011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2358011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}