Claim to FameEliminated Contestant Says Going Home Felt Like a 'Weight Lifted' Off Their Shoulders (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Shane, Adam, Hud and Mackenzie on Claim to Fame.Photo:Disney/Chris Willard

Disney/Chris Willard

This post contains spoilers from the season 3 finale of Claim to Fame.

Claim to Fameseason 3 is upping the ante with a two-parter.

In the first half of the finale, Shane found himself in the hot seat as Mackenzie, who won the competition earlier in the episode, selected herself as the guesser. As a result, Shane was eliminated as she correctlyguessed his celebrity relativeas late actorMarlon Brando, who is his grandfather.

Speaking with PEOPLE exclusively, Shane recalls that he knew it was all over for him once Mackenzie put herself as the guesser.

“I knew that was it,” he explains. “I had multiple conversations with her that day before the guess-off. So I knew she was on the fence. At this point, I don’t even think she had my clue. So she wasn’t confident about anything, and I was really campaigning to make Adam be the guesser because if we did, I wasn’t going to share her clue with him. I was going to wait for the final challenge and wait for everybody to come back to the house and really piggyback off them to figure that out.”

“But Mackenzie, as great of a game she played, was also very paranoid about everybody figuring out who she was,” he adds. “So it was like I’m sitting there, and I was like just at a loss. I didn’t have much avenues left to be like, ‘Yo, Adam just says he knows everybody. He doesn’t know anybody. I promise you he doesn’t.’ If we would’ve just committed to having him be the guesser, I would’ve made the top three. My clue would’ve still been in her hands, and they would’ve figured it out. So it’d just come down to the final game. But I really thought that sounded a lot better than what the actual outcome was.”

Though Shane notes Adam has been a “wild card” this whole season, he ultimately decided to team up with him in the final episode, which he says was a strategic move as he tried to advance to the final three.

“I was put in a corner. I didn’t have any options left,” Shane notes. “Honestly, I knew I was going to always have to confide in Adam in this situation, but my thing was timing. I don’t know how much time I have in order to see if he could help me figure out this clue. Adam is a complete wild card. You don’t know what he’s going to do once you give him this information. I was very reluctant to do so, but literally, at this point, I had no other options.”

Though Shane is proud of the game he played in the house, he admits it was a bit of a relief finally having his celebrity relative revealed.

“It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders in a sense because I had spent so much time hiding,” Shane explains. “Because for me, it’s so naturally, every time I introduce myself, I say, ‘Hi, my name is Shane Brando.’ So that was the hardest thing, was just trying to forget my last name for so long. So when I got to finally just like, ‘Yes, my name’s Shane Donovan Brando,’ it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.”

Shane and Marlon Brando.Disney/Erica Hernandez; Santi Visalli/Getty

Disney/Erica Hernandez; Santi Visalli/Getty

Despite his grandfather being a movie legend, Shane notes that he had a pretty normal “grandson-grandfather relationship” with him growing up, recalling that he was not only incredibly wise but also a big jokester.

“You never knew if there was a whoopee cushion under a seat, or you never knew what’s going to happen next,” he says. “He always loved to play games. We’d be at the dinner table, and we’d play little games as a family. And they were acting-based games, too.”

“The amount of knowledge and the way he went about acquiring this knowledge is something so admirable and something that I wish I had,” he adds of his grandfather. “In his house, he had a library full of books of the most random stuff, like marine biology, drums, and then mechanics and engineering. It was kind of amazing to see, but then, it also makes sense to why he was the caliber of actor that he was.”

As he was very close with his grandfather growing up, he also spent quite a bit of time around Brando’s close friend,Michael Jackson, who was revealed asDedrick’s unclethis season. Interestingly enough, Shane notes that he and Dedrick likely ran into each other at Neverland when they were younger and didn’t even know it.

Shane on Claim to Fame.DISNEY/Chris Willard

DISNEY/Chris Willard

What Happens toClaim to FameContestants When They’re Eliminated (No, They Don’t Go Home)

While his grandfather serves as his “claim to fame,” amid season 3, Shane has become known for his signature chicken wing necklace that he’s worn throughout the series. While the necklace started as a joke, it eventually evolved into a whole brand for him.

“For me, it’s like a little glimpse into my sense of humor and just kind of who I am,” he says of the necklace which he created and sells onhis TikTok. “It wasn’t actually supposed to take off in the way it did, but after the first day, then from the reaction I got, I’m like, ‘All right, man. I’m going to really wear this chain. And we’re going to rock it,’” he says. “Then I started coming up with a slogan ‘feeling crispy.’ But I really wore it to ground myself, to remind myself every day, this is just a game. Don’t take it too seriously. Have fun with it. It’s been a great experience. Now I have a thousand chicken on a chain necklaces to sell.”

In fact, he already has plans to expand his business. “I have key chains. I’m in the works of trying to get slides made that will be a fried chicken wing, like a sandal slide,” he notes. “Then I’m also in the works of doing shirts. Again, I didn’t go into the show thinking that this was going to be the outcome. I did the show, and I’m like, ‘Hey, this actually could be something. Maybe I should start working on this.'"

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Claim to Fameseason 3 is available to stream on Hulu.

source: people.com