The 98 Degrees singer, 48, and wifeVanessa Lachey, 41, appear on Friday’s episode ofThe Ellen DeGeneres Show, where the dad of three explains to guest hostStephen ‘tWitch’ Bossthat his kids didn’t think he was cool until he competed onThe Masked Singer.
“Do your kids get who you are? Do they know that you’re famous?” asks Boss.
“I think they’re starting to,” Nick says of his three kids, sons Camden, 9, and Phoenix, 5, plus daughter Brooklyn, 7. “But they don’t care. I’ll sing around the house and son’s like, ‘Dad stop singing, stop singing.’ "
“And you say, ‘My singing put a roof over your head,’ " Vanessa quips.
“It’s funny, they don’t care about 98 Degrees, they don’t care about any of that stuff. But when I didThe Masked Singer, that was the moment that Dad became cool with the kids,” Nick continues. “It took dressing up like a pig and singing on national television to be cool to my kids. Whatever it takes.”
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Michael Becker/FOX; Paul Archuleta/Getty

Nick wasnamed the season 5 winnerofThe Masked Singerlast May. “Daddy’s coming home with a little hardware!” he declared on stage upon his win.
The singer, who performed as Piglet on the Fox reality competition, shared followinghis unmaskingthat his kids had wanted him to go on the show, but they didn’t know he ended up actually doing it. Still, hisdaughter suspected Daddy had been under the pig outfit.
“We watched the premiere episode together and I was holding Brooklyn and I think I got two or three notes out of my mouth and she pointed to me, she goes, ‘Daddy,’ " Nick told PEOPLE after his win. “They recognized my voice immediately.”
When Nick’s wife Vanessa askedtheir three kidsfor ideas for the “What’s Left of Me” singer’s costume, Camden actually suggested a pig, “which was really funny because I had already chosen the pig,” Nick said. “So it substantiated my selection.”
The musician said at the time he told his kids he was performing as Piglet, but they weren’t aware if he was going to win or not.
“So we watched the entire season and like, ‘Is this the night Daddy goes home?’ It’s been a lot of fun to kind of share that whole ride with them. It becameMasked Singernight in our house on Wednesdays and we all watched together and they nervously waited to see if I’d get unmasked that night,” " he shared.
source: people.com