Claim to Fame season 3 contestant Danny (whose real name is Nael Zayas) is Marc Anthony’s nephew, but some of his competitors suspected he might be related to Jelly Roll.
“It’s flattering. And it’s funny because Jelly Roll just had a collaboration with WWE, so it made it look even more [fitting],” Danny, who posed as the relative of a celebrity wrestler on the reality series, exclusively told Us Weekly after his Wednesday, August 14, elimination. “I thought it was actually hilarious because that’s exactly what I was trying to go for. I was trying to go for a Dusty Rhodes type with the mullet. I was trying to really throw people off with the attitude I was bringing. I even changed my voice a little bit.”
Danny stayed calm when asked whether he’s related to a country singer during a July episode
where contestants had to answer questions while a polygraph machine measured their breathing and heart rates.
“Don’t pay attention to the heart monitor, I’m just fat,” he quipped. Danny’s fellow contestant Shane explained the reasoning behind the country singer question in a confessional.
“My immediate go-to is Jelly Roll,” he said, noting that there was a jar of grape jelly on the clue wall.
Danny’s competitors never got a chance to test their Jelly Roll theory because he was eliminated after incorrectly guessing that Mackenzie is related to Blake Shelton. He came to the conclusion after seeing a clue that pointed toward a 6’6” country star. (Shelton, 48, is 6’5”.)
“I was 100 percent confident,” Danny told Us, admitting that he doesn’t know that much about country music. “I felt like Blake was the tallest country musician that I knew. [I was] just an inch off.”
Danny’s elimination came shortly after several of his competitors — Mackenzie, Adam and Hud — deciphered his clue and determined that Anthony, 55, is his celebrity relative. Danny noted that his uncle knew he was going on the show.
“He’s out of the country right now, but I definitely told him about everything that’s going on and he definitely wanted me to just be my honest self and everybody would be attracted to that,” he said of the Grammy-winning salsa artist. “And I think I did that through my gameplay.”
Danny added that he has a “tight connection” with Anthony’s kids. (Anthony shares daughter Ariana, 30, and son Chase, 28, with ex Debbie Rosado, sons Cristian, 24, and Ryan, 20, with ex-wife Dayanara Torres, twins Max and Emme, 16, with ex-wife Jennifer Lopez and son Marco, 14 months, with wife Nadia Ferreira.)
“A lot of them are in school, you know, thriving right now. They’re doing their thing, they’re about to graduate and pursue their own careers at this point,” Danny said. “They’re not kids anymore. It’s crazy seeing them grow up to be the beautiful person that they grew into.”
While Danny said it’s “inspiring” to see “the love that [Anthony] gets all over the world,” his uncle still makes time for family as well.
“Every time we have a chance, we always try to get together and do the family thing, whether it’s reunions, whether it’s holidays,” he shared. “We always try to at least get together around that time.”
Claim to Fame airs on ABC Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
