Claim to Fame season 3 contestant Gracie Hyland, who went by Gracie Lou on the show, had a strategy going into the competition that involved Billy Ray Cyrus.
Gracie was eliminated during the Wednesday, July 17, episode after she incorrectly guessed that her competitor Adam is related to Dustin Hoffman. Her celebrity relative was then revealed to be her uncle Jon Cryer, which none of her costars saw coming.
Gracie successfully steered her competition off course by pretending to be from Nashville (she’s actually from California) and singing during the group talent show. Her goal was to convince people that her celebrity relative was a country musician, and she had some specific stars in mind.
“I was going into the house thinking like, ‘OK, Billy Ray Cyrus could be an option because my uncle was on Hannah Montana, so I wouldn’t have to lie about being on set,’” Gracie exclusively told Us Weekly after her elimination. “I did a little bit of research, but I tried to pin it down to Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus.”
Although Cryer, 59, is better known for his Emmy-winning role on the sitcom Two and a Half Men and his breakout role as Duckie in the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink, he did in fact appear in several episodes of Hannah Montana as Lilly Truscott (Emily Osment)’s dad, Ken Truscott. The show’s titular star, Miley Cyrus, later appeared on two episodes of Two and a Half Men in 2012, playing Jake Harper’s (Angus T. Jones) ex-girlfriend Missi.
While Gracie didn’t last long enough on Claim to Fame to flesh out her supposed Cyrus connection, she did get a chance to show off her singing talent during the premiere episode. She told Us that she’s pursuing a singing career in real life.
“Right now it’s a side hustle, but that is the dream to do it full-time, eventually,” she said. “I started writing music in 2020, so I’m kind of getting more comfortable [with] that side of me. I would love to do music, and it is a passion of mine.”
Wherever the future takes her, Gracie knows she has Cryer in her corner.
“He has been so involved since the day I was born. I don’t live near him anymore, so I don’t get to see him as much as I would love to, but he visits a lot,” she said of her uncle.
Cryer made a cameo at the end of Wednesday’s episode, picking up Gracie from the Claim to Fame house and hilariously scolding her for not being cutthroat enough. Gracie told Us that Cryer helped her develop the Southern belle persona she took on in the game.
“We did talk before about leaning into the southern accent, but I was like, ‘I’m not good at accents, so it’s gonna be really hard for me,’” she recalled. “I thought going into the house I wasn’t gonna do an accent, I was just gonna throw in a little twang here and there. But there were some days where I’d wake up and fully be a Southern belle, and then by the end of the day, I was me. … So, hopefully no one caught on and I’m sorry to people in the South, because that was not good.”
In addition to crafting a character, Gracie also tried her hand at blackmailing fellow competitor Naomi. After getting a clue about Naomi’s celebrity relative, Gracie implied that she would share the clue with other cast members if Naomi didn’t give her information about another player ahead of the guess-off. The move backfired, as Naomi gave Gracie false information about Adam, which led to Gracie’s elimination.
“I really did wanna work with [Naomi], and I am not really a person that is competitive or wants to be aggressive in that way,” Gracie told Us. “I thought, ‘OK, I just need to be strong, and I need to win her trust by showing her that I’m gonna protect her through this thing.’ I think if I approached it in a way that was more me and [aligned with] my core values, then it would’ve worked. But I was trying to be someone else, and it did not go well for me.”
Claim to Fame airs Wednesdays on ABC at 9 p.m. ET.
