Evidence Mounts That The Masked Singer's Turtle Is This Former Boy Band Star

Another week, another crazy good performance from Turtle on The Masked SingerSeason 3.

This celebrity performer sure is making a "shell-uva" case for taking it all the way this season, especially with his most recent performance of Coldplay's "Fix You," which was haunting and mesmerizing. But that's just the latest in a string of knockouts. All season long, Turtle has been wowing us with his smooth pipes and and hot dance moves to boot, making it fairly certain he's been "terrapin" up stages with his talents for a long time. We can't know for sure until that head comes off, but based on everything we know, Turtle is almost certainly singer-songwriter and actor Jesse McCartney. How can we be so sure? Let's unpack the evidence, starting with the most recent.

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This week, Turtle dropped a few more telltale clues: he feels like a superhero and we saw a green mop, and we already know Jesse has comic book/superhero roots. We saw a wanted poster with a $1,999 reward; Jessie has a perfume named wanted, and he got started in his band Dream St. in 1999. Then there was that creepy body inside a crate -- which sure did seem like a reference to his time on Fear the Walking Dead

Need more proof? Listen to that voice! Compare the sound of Turtle belting out "Higher Love" from Episode 10 to even just a few notes from the early McCartney tune "Beautiful Soul," and the similarities in their voices are hard to ignore.

Another whopper of a clue came at the outset of the season when Turtle wrote "Don't rave ever at my school -- Turtle" on a chalkboard. Astute observers keenly noted that the first letters of each word spell Dream St., as in the name of the boy band McCartney was in during his teen years. Also, Turtle once remarked that he was "on the hunt for booty," and fans of the singer and actor (All My Children, Greek) think that's a nod to a lyric "That thing you got behind you is amazing," which he's used in more than one song. We've seen Greek letters on a chalkboard, which probably harken back to his stint on Greek -- just like a close-up look at Seoul, South Korea, on a map was probably a nod to "Beautiful Soul."

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Turtle has been seen with a surfboard, a probable reference to McCartney's appearance in Summerland -- or maybe the Teen Choice Awards (he's a seven-time nominee and one-time winner). Most recently, Turtle held up a comic book titled "The Amazing Adventures of Shellboy," priced at $10.13. McCartney superfans know he voiced the character Dick Grayson in the animated Young Justice series from 2010 to 2013, a far from subtle clue that McCartney is the multi-hyphenate slowly inching his way to first place in this competition.

And even though a clue package in week 11 included a bag that had a NKOTB tag on it, we're sure that's a fake out; it's important to note that the package also showed a baseball glove, which happens to be his favorite sport. He even played pitcher and shortstop in high school. We know that's you Jesse!

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The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Fox.