John Oates might be staring down a legal battle with his onetime musical partner, Daryl Hall, but that couldn’t stop him from trying to make his dreams come true on The Masked Singer. On Wednesday night, however, Oates finally went home—and even more tragically, none of the judges could figure out the rhyming connection between his Anteater costume and the Hall & Oates hit song “Maneater.”
In the end, all three judges guessed that Oates was someone else: Nicole Scherzinger guessed John Mellencamp, Robin Thicke went with Jackson Browne, Ken Jeong thought Billy Joel, and Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg posited he was Steven Van Zandt.
Although he was disappointed to go home, Oates told Variety, “I was flattered by the comparisons they were making. I really liked the fact that they were comparing me to some of my favorite singers.”
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In news that shocked and amused fans last month, Oates’ former Hall & Oates collaborator sued him last month. According to the Associated Press, Hall is trying to stop Oates from selling his stake in their joint venture, Whole Oats LLP Enterprises. In a filing obtained by People, Hall accuses Oates of “bad faith conduct” that left him feeling “ambushed.”
“His behavior has become adversarial and aggressive instead of professional and courteous,” Hall reportedly writes in the filing. “He began making numerous demands upon me related to, among other things, the social media and trademark assets in WOE, creating disagreements brought to my door by a revolving cast of lawyers. It appears to me that John Oates’ intent has become to burden and harass me without regard to my interests as his business partner, or the interests of WOE.” Lawyers for both musicians did not immediately respond to People’s request for comment.
When Entertainment Weekly asked Oates this week if he believed he and his former collaborator would ever perform together again, he replied, “Oh, you know what, I never say never to anything. I don’t know what's going to happen... Right now, I’m focused on where I am in life and leading the best life I can and moving forward.”
Although Oates thought of the “Maneater” connection instantly when he saw his costume, the singer told EW that he wasn’t wild about the getup when he first saw it.
“They were trying to make a connection between ‘Maneater’ and Anteater, but no one else seemed to get that for some reason, which I found kind of surprising,” Oates said. “To be honest with you, I didn’t really like the costume when I first saw the drawing of it, but they twisted my arm and convinced me that it would be cool. And I’m like, oh, God, all right, sure. Why not?”
When asked why he agreed to join the show, Oates told EW that he was excited to try new things and that the scheduling seemed to work perfectly. It also seemed like a good way to “do something different,” he added, “where I could sing and not have my voice and my personality connected to my past.”
As the singer-songwriter put it, “I’m really at this point now in my life, I’m really making an effort to kind of leave my past in the past and move forward. I’ve got a lot of good things that are happening and I want to do that.”
