The Masked Singer is notoriously secretive, but Bobby Berk was able to connect with one of the judges during filming — all because of a certain farm animal. 

In an interview with Tudum, Berk, Queer Eye’s resident design expert, opened up about his Masked Singer run. Berk was eliminated on Nov. 17, placing fifth as The Caterpillar and singing hits like “If I Were a Boy” by Beyoncé and “It’s Gonna Be Me” by NSYNC. At over 100 pounds, the Caterpillar was the show’s largest and heaviest costume to date. The temperature inside his suit got up to 120 degrees during his performance, so Berk says he had to wear a vest covered in ice packs to prevent from passing out. 

But Berk had something in common with one of the show’s judges — even if she didn’t know it. He told us that during the sixth season of Queer Eye, the Fab Five helped Jamie Wallace-Griner, the founder of animal rescue Safe in Austin. There, he found out that one of the nonprofit’s pigs, Mabel, used to belong to Masked Singer judge Jenny McCarthy. 

“I don't know the whole backstory, but I would assume [McCarthy] got a pig and thought, ‘Oh, this is a great idea. I'm going to get a pig as a pet,’ and then it became 300 pounds,” he says. “So she brought it to Safe in Austin.” 

Shortly after filming the episode, Berk was in his trailer on the set of The Masked Singer when he and McCarthy began exchanging DMs about Mabel. “She had no idea I was on Masked Singer and had no idea I was literally 100 feet away from her talking about her pig,” he says. “So it was funny, when I was unmasked afterwards, [and] she was like, ‘Wait, were you texting me while you were here, on set, about Mabel?’ I was like, ‘Yep, I was just right outside!’ I literally walked by her in my costume moments after talking to her, and of course, she had no idea it was me.”

Confirming just how strict the show is, Berk says his backup dancers and producers on the show didn’t know his true identity — he says he had to be outfitted in a mask, hoodie and gloves just to get into his trailer. But Berk revealed to EW last month that the Fab Five were in on the secret. “We were actually filming the last episode of season 6 of Queer Eye the day I got the call to do this. And we were all sitting in the trailer together, so they overheard the initial conversation,” he says. “So, they knew. They knew. [Laughs]”

And apparently, his identity wasn’t so secret to everyone. Miss Tara, another one of the heroes on Season 6, texted him right after his episode premiered. “She was like, ‘I know that voice. You’re f**king singing all the time on set. I recognized it the moment you started singing,’ ” he says. “I was like, ‘I don’t know!’ [Laughs] She called it.”

To see more of Berk’s artistry, catch him, Mabel and the rest of the Fab Five on the newest season of Queer Eye, premiering Dec. 31.