WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. – Kobie Turner was in the hot tub with one of his teammates during OTAs one day this summer when he began humming "Miss Independent."
That teammate, Cory Durden, became curious.
"Yo, you've been singing that song a lot to day," Durden told the defensive end. "I rock with that song, like, that's from way back. But is that like, it's just on your mind or something?"
"Yeah, dude. Like, it's just stuck in my head right now."
As Turner and Durden went back to football, Little did Durden and the rest of the Rams know that Turner was actually rehearsing his Week 2 song for FOX's "The Masked Singer."
They finally found out this week, when Turner was unmasked as "Goo" on the show – unveiling the secret he kept under wraps for nearly six months.
"Oh, they were shocked," Turner said of his teammates' reaction. "They were really shocked. Everybody's been dapping me up, and they're like, 'No way!' Like, I see all of the comments on my posts from last night, and they're like, 'No way! This is so crazy!' They're like, 'How have you kept this from us?' But yeah, it's been really cool."
The opportunity came about quickly. Turner had been in talks with his marketing agent about doing it. Then, one day this past summer, his agent called Turner while he and and his fiancé Alissa were sitting on the couch and asked if they wanted to do the show. Turner immediately said yes and told his marketing agent to sign them up.
Filming took place toward the tail end of the Rams' OTA practices in June.
"My first performance, actually, when I performed 'Lose Control,'" Turner said. "I left OTAs practice, showered up really, really fast, sprinted from the locker room and got back home, picked up Alissa, and then we went straight to filming, so we missed the majority of the day."
Choreography practices and a bunch of recording followed, which was done so Turner could hear the track back and figure out what he wanted to do live since contestants sing it live. There were also several rehearsals with the camera to determine the best angles for capturing and enhancing the entire performance.
The "Goo" costume was inspired from getting slimed with Nickelodeon last year. Fans saw "Goo" make the quarterfinals, where he narrowly lost to Strawberry Shortcake. Turner was disappointed about not advancing, and said he had to have "a couple of debrief talks with my fiancé" to move past it. Overall, though, he enjoyed the experience and said it "brought healing" to himself.
"Yeah, I was frustrated," Turner said. "Obviously being in this building and being a Ram, I'm an ultimate competitor, so everything I'm doing is, 'Man, I should've done this,' or I'm dissecting my performances like, 'Man, when I had to get up out under the stage, I was feeling a little breathy.' But honestly, it was such a great experience."
Clips from the broadcast showed how special the experience was for Turner, because it showed how being "more than an athlete" is possible.
And, for someone who had to juggle music and football and the conflicts between each for so long, being able to do both as a professional football player meant everything to him. He's also excited about the possibilities that can come out of this.
"It was really validating that this is something that I can do, and that I hope is validating for everybody, right?" Turner said. "For anybody who's trying to do both, that if you just put in the sweat equity, if you really go after it, that you can do both.
"It was kind of a full-circle moment because my whole life, it's been 'choose' – choose football or choose music. I'm taking extra ... classes, but people want me to take extra weight lifting classes so I can get better at football because I say that I want to go to school for football. And yes, I do want to go to school for football, but to be able to balance that, I'm just going to go in and put in the extra work in the mornings and go get some extra lifts in the mornings so that I can still go and fulfill this other passion. For it to kind of come full circle like that, and to be able to get some of the feedback was really, really cool. I'm excited for kind of how things go from here, whether it be through putting out some more music. But to just truly be able to live in that authentic part of myself and to be able to bring the totality of who I am to the surface, was a truly special moment."
