Tamera Mowry-Housley, recently revealed as the Seashell on this season of The Masked Singer, says she had a moment on the show where she cried.

Mowry-Housley was able to keep her identity a secret as she performed, making it into the Super 8. But this past Wednesday’s performance made her identifiable as Housely’s siblings, including her identical twin Tia Mowry-Hardict, keyed in on her.

“The moment I performed the first time, my phone was blowing up from my family,” Mowry-Housley said in an interview with People magazine. “My brother, Tahj, and my sister, Tia, were texting back and forth. And they said, ‘We know this is you, Tamera. That shoulder and knee pop, it gives it away.’”

Her costume was incredibly sentimental. “One of my favorite places to be ever is Hawaii. I was raised there,” she tells People. “My mom’s side is from the Bahamas, Eleuthera Bahamas, and Eleuthera Bahamas is probably one of the most beautiful beaches that I’ve ever seen. I feel like it’s home. The beach is home to me and it just made sense [to be Seashell]. I thought she was a great representation of who I am.”

“It’s always been a dream of mine to sing again,” she told People of joining the show. “I started my Hollywood career in a theater group, actually. I was acting and singing at the same time. It was called Voices and I was 14. And at that same time, I was doing a pilot called Sister, Sister. So I had to focus more on acting, but I always wondered what it would have been if I went that route. I had sang on Sister, Sister, I sing in the shower all the time. The last performance in front of an audience was with my sister. We sang at the Malibu triathlon and it was awesome, but it was a long time ago, so I wanted to revisit it.”

Mowry-Housley, who wants to pursue a possible career in gospel music, also disclosed she cried on The Masked Singer. Although she has been on television for decades, the show challenged her to face her fears.

“For me, it was about facing the fear, not hiding anymore, tapping into something that I have loved to do for years and just going for it, taking that big leap of faith,” she said. “I was shaking in my boots, literally — Seashell had boots. I cried multiple times because there were moments I wanted to run the opposite way, because I hadn’t performed in over 20 years. And you are brought into this whirlwind. It was me up against the girl that was afraid to sing, afraid of what people would say, afraid of the critiques, afraid of even succeeding. Every single time I made it to the next round, I was like, ‘I’m going to do this all over again!’ But it was such an amazing journey, and I am a different person because of it. I’m stronger. I had the best time.

And on her future in music, she said, “Absolutely. I want to do a gospel album, a musical, a Disney film. That would be fun. It was interesting because a lot of the judges, they literally said almost every Disney princess singer out there — Idina Menzel, Anika Noni Rose, Kristen Bell.”

Tamara Mowry

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