‘Claim to Fame’: Monay Explains Why Cast Believed Elton John Theory

Monay, real name Jerrica Brooks (daughter of comedian J.B. Smoove), played a strong game in Claim to Fame Season 2, which came to a close on August 28 on ABC. Arguably the season’s best strategist, she came in second place behind Gabriel Cannon, whose finale challenge win gave him the power to decide the order of the final Guess-Offs, setting the stage for his win.

While Jerrica proved to have the best pop culture knowledge of the cast, she was one of the many who fell victim to the Elton John theory. Chris Osmond‘s claim to fame was father Donny Osmond, but it took the young cast the entire season to bring up his name as a possibility (Gabriel posed the theory in Episode 9 in conversation with Jerrica, who confirmed the theory in the final challenge). Somehow, Hugo Wentzel (President Jimmy Carter’s grandson) was convinced the British musician was from Utah, and he had Jerrica, J.R., and Karsyn, believing the theory too.

Jerrica tells TV Insider that this mistake can be chalked up to exhaustion. “It’s crazy. I would say Utah in my mouth and it wasn’t registering in my brain,” she says. “Nothing’s really stimulating your brain. You’re talking to the rest of the contestants all day. We have no TV, no music, no anything. Occasionally we read our books, but I had nothing going in my brain.”

By the time she came to her senses, it was too late. “The moment I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t say anything to Hugo anymore,” she adds. He was already on stage for the Episode 7 Guess-Off. “I don’t know if it’s on camera, but I looked at [Gabe] and I was like, ‘This is wrong.’ And I felt terrible. It clicked in my brain. I was like, ‘He’s freaking British.'”

“It sucked, because I adore Hugo. He was such a joy in the house,” she notes. But his elimination did mean she was one step closer to the finale, where she would send Chris home herself. She hit some rotten luck when Gabe won the final challenge, but Jerrica has no regrets about finishing in second place. Tears came to her eyes as Gabe started to reveal her celebrity relative, but it wasn’t sad tears.

ABC/John Fleenor

“I was just happy to go home. I was happy to just reveal myself,” she shares. “Monay is my middle name, but the entire time I’m hiding myself. I can’t really connect with the people in the house that closely. We’re all gunning for the $100k. [The finale] just felt like a good release, a weight off my shoulders and I was just excited for it to be over and just to tell people my real name so they can start calling me Jerrica.” She also was eager to sing her father’s praises after keeping his identity a secret all season long.

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Chris told TV Insider he had to constantly update his strategy as the episodes pressed on. Jerrica, however, was savvy enough to keep to her original strategy through the entire game, proving her prowess as a player.

“My strategy was to never be the guesser unless I wanted to be the guesser, which worked out for me the entire time,” she explains. “Also in the beginning, I said I’m going to be lying a lot. And then the rest of the season I did not lie that much. I decided to take the truth route and then to see if that would work. If they thought I was lying, that was kind of on them. I said, ‘OK, I’m going to tell the truth and I just never want to be the guesser.’ And it worked out. I made it all the way to the end.”

It was lucky for Monay that Shayne, Eddie Murphy’s daughter, was eliminated early, as she was the first person to bring up Smoove in the Episode 10 finale. Had she been around to hear more Smoove clues, Jerrica likely wouldn’t have placed in second. The same goes for Chris and Jada. Had Jada (the season’s oldest cast member and Dolly Parton‘s niece) stuck around, she would have quickly cracked the Osmond code. Jerrica is well aware that she and Chris benefitted from the generational differences among the cast; their ages meant their dads’ careers weren’t on other players’ radars. She understands why it took so long to recall the Osmonds.

“I’m 29, so I’m a little older. I felt like in the middle between Gabe and Chris and J.R.,” she explains, “whereas Karsyn and Hugo and Travis were early twenties. So I could see why they didn’t get it. I just needed more clues and then I picked it up and I figured it out. I saw the [Donny and Marie Osmond] lunchbox. I don’t know where that memory came from, but I knew who that was.”

ABC/John Fleenor

In a game like Claim to Fame, it’s imperative that no one knows your famous family member. Outside of the game’s structure, Jerrica’s not offended that the cast wasn’t familiar with her dad.

“There were points in time where I spoke about my dad and I said, ‘My dad is famous, but a lot of people my age and up might know him more than somebody younger than me.’ He’s been around for a very long time. But I think it’s just a generational thing and that’s OK. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist and they’re not big people in their generations. It’s just as time moves on, we just have bigger stars.”

One claim to fame the whole cast figured out was Karsyn. They were confident she was related to NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt, Jr. episodes before she was sent home. Jerrica says she wasn’t their primary target.

“I think everybody was kind of determined to figure out Chris because we were just trying to figure him out for a long time,” she says. “Everybody just got hyper-focused on Chris, and Karsyn was able to make it to a fourth, which was kind of cool.”

Claim to Fame, Season 2 Streaming Now, Hulu