[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Claim to Fame Season 2 Episode 6.]
No one realized how good Olivia’s Claim to Fame game was until she got herself eliminated. The Episode 6 guess-off became her downfall when she incorrectly guessed that Karsyn was related to NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon. While Olivia was wrong about Karsyn, no one came remotely close to predicting the identity of her own celebrity relative.
As fans learned in the Monday, July 31 installment, Olivia’s “claim to fame” is The Masked Singer judge and former Playboy bunny Jenny McCarthy, her mother’s sister. She feels the McCarthy hints on the clue wall (a bunny and a mask) were fairly obvious (she wishes she could have seen her written coded clue, which was never unveiled). But unlike Tom Hanks’ niece, Carly, Olivia’s strategy was to draw attention to her wall clues early on and remain nonchalant.
“I kind of took Carly’s plan and did the opposite,” Olivia tells TV Insider after her July 31 elimination. “Every time Tom was brought up, she was super reactive. They never show it on the show, but I actually kept saying like, ‘Oh my God, these bunnies have to be Playboy. There has to be a playmate.’ I kept just directly saying my clue, which I think worked because everyone assumed it couldn’t be that then.”
Her strategy all season long was to “fly as low under the radar as possible,” which she feels she nailed, “especially considering no one even pulled my clue.” The other core part of her strategy: “I really wanted to play a really heavy social game, and I really was close to every person in the house.” Her closest ally was Hugo, who she says was “really the only person giving me information.”
Despite being fairly certain that Hugo’s famous relative is President Jimmy Carter (his clue in Episode 6 was “Commander in Chief who farmed nuts”), she “never would’ve” put Hugo on the chopping block “unless it was top three or something, just because he was helping me so much.”
Olivia feels she “got out at the perfect time,” as “the house was getting a little tense.” While she’s proud of her strong social game and doesn’t regret her Gordon guess, she does wish she knew more about pop culture before going on the show. “I honestly went into the game being aware that my lack of pop culture [knowledge] was probably gonna catch up with me at some point.”
“I was doing Celebrity Jeopardy, I was using TikTok filters. I was trying my best to get a few names in my head” before filming started, she says, “but ultimately, I’m pretty happy with how I played. I guess if I would’ve changed anything, maybe just saying Jeff Gordon.”
Karsyn gave her reason to doubt the Gordon theory planted in her mind by Chris (who we believe is Donny Osmond‘s son). Olivia explains: “I was really hopeful it was Jeff Gordon obviously, because I wanted to keep playing the game. They don’t show this in the interview or in in the show, but I did literally go up to Karsyn and was like, ‘Hey, girl, I’m sorry, I’m gonna guess you.’ She freaked out and got so mad.”
ABC/John Fleenor
“They also don’t show that Karsyn did tell me Jeff Gordon was wrong,” she adds. “I think that’s why she got so mad, because she thought that I’d be able to guess her correct celebrity. But when she told me it was wrong, I honestly just thought she was playing the game. I didn’t think she was being honest with me, which is really funny … I thought she was lying. And everyone in the house was very convinced as well that it was Jeff Gordon, so it seemed like a good shot to shoot.”
Had someone else incorrectly guessed Gordon, Olivia would’ve been convinced that Karsyn’s relative is Dale Earnhardt Jr. That’s not due to any deep NASCAR knowledge, she says. It’s because of a band she liked in high school called Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. (now just called Jr. Jr.). “I don’t follow NASCAR or anything correlated to racing, so I really just threw that [guess] outta my butt because I thought, ‘Well, I know one person who drives a race car in the entire world, and it’s Dale Earnhardt Jr.,’ so I wasn’t even connecting that necessarily with Karsyn. But yeah, the irony is maybe that was a better guess than Jeff Gordon.”
Players have theorized that Chris is related to Jim Carrey, who was in a long-term relationship with McCarthy from 2005 to 2010. The Carrey theory came about because of Chris’s appearance (though we think he clearly has the face of an Osmond), as well as a mask on the clue wall that made them think of The Mask. The clues have been rather meta this season. While the mask clue was undoubtedly a McCarthy and Masked Singer reference, we believe it could apply to more than one secret celebrity.
We’ve theorized since the Season 2 premiere that Gabriel is Nick Cannon‘s brother. Cannon is the host of The Masked Singer, so that clue could apply to Gabriel’s claim to fame as much as it applied to Olivia’s. It could also have worked as a dual reference to The Mask, but rather than solely being about Carrey, it could be referencing his relationship with McCarthy. Olivia believes McCarthy’s connection to Carrey helped her get cast in the first place.
“Jenny is a very famous celebrity, but I thought, you know, she’s no Tom Hanks. I logically, honestly thought that I was allowed to be on the show because someone must have been related to Jim Carrey,” she says. “That’s why I was kind of set on [the Chris/Carrey theory], personally. Also, Chris does look a lot like Jim Carrey, and he was constantly making faces and beatboxing. That’s just his personality. It made sense why we thought he was [related to] Jim Carrey for a second.”
ABC/John Fleenor
No one has been able to figure out Chris’s relative just yet. His relative and those meta clues are what got Jane sent home in Episode 3. Jane, Dolly Parton‘s niece, was convinced her clue was pulled because of a “Puppy Love” reference. “Puppy Love,” as Jane explained in the episode, was Parton’s first song to chart. It turns out that it was Chris’s clue after all, but he’s not related to Elvis Presley as Jane predicted, so she was sent home.
Her guess may have been wrong, but we do think there is a connection between her clues and Chris’s. It can’t be a coincidence that both Parton and Osmond have songs called “Puppy Love.” The players seem to be catching onto Chris now (they realized his clue was saying the famous family member was a teen star in the ’70s), and Olivia thinks he’s the player to beat.
“Chris is definitely up there because he’s already been guessed and his clue’s been out so long and he doesn’t really seem like he’s in danger,” she explains. Monay (who we think is related to J.B. Smoove because of her Saturday Night Live and Curb Your Enthusiasm-themed clue) and Gabriel are also strong contenders for the top prize in her mind, but she admits she is “a little worried for Monay.”
“She’s an amazing player, but it does seem like her clue is pretty easy to read,” Olivia says. “That being said, Gabe and Chris don’t know what Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is a show I love, so I think she’s definitely in the running too.”
McCarthy made a video cameo at the end of the episode to congratulate her niece on her Claim to Fame run. Olivia says McCarthy actually convinced her to go on the show in the first place.
“She was fully supportive,” she shares. “It was really nice. I’m not a big person to be on TV or anything. I’ve never reached out to her to do anything like that, so if anything, she was more encouraging because I was more so asking her opinion if I should do it or not. She was just really supportive and really nice about it, so it was nice to have that support.”
Did you accurately guess Olivia’s celebrity relative? Let us know in the comments below.
Claim to Fame, Mondays, 10/9c, ABC
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
