“Claim to Fame”'s Shane shares grandfather Marlon Brando's odd TV habit: 'Is he messing with the family?'

"Absolutely not," Shane tells EW when asked if the late Oscar winner would have enjoyed watching him on the reality show.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Claim to Fame, season 3, episode 7, "I'm Coming Four You."

Look how they massacred his boy.

Shane looked poised to go all the way on Claim to Fame, stumping players since the season 3 premiere when Bianca went home for guessing he was related to Forest Whitaker. But after his wine bottle clue was finally exposed in the penultimate episode, he made Mackenzie an offer she could refuse: forget his clue and vote Adam as the guesser. Instead, she put herself in the hot seat and correctly guessed that Shane is related to Marlon Brando.

The two-time Oscar winner may be best known to many as The Godfather, but to Shane, he's the grandfather. So would Brando, who died in 2004 at age 80, have enjoyed watching his grandson on reality TV? "Absolutely not. No," Shane tells Entertainment Weekly.

Read on as Shane reveals why his grandpa used to randomly mute the television while watching movies with family, what it was like having Michael Jackson-hosted birthday parties at Neverland Ranch, why he doesn't think Adam deserves to win, and the meaning behind his fried chicken necklace.

Related: Every Claim to Fame season 3 celebrity relative reveal

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You had people stumped right up until the very end. What were some of your favorite wrong guesses you heard for your celebrity relative?

SHANE: When I heard people saying Forest Whitaker, I was like, that's so far off. I was unfortunately the deciding vote for Bianca, but after that I honestly never heard my name pop up. I felt like people got a little nervous to even pursue who I might be related to.

Did you feel like you'd be a goner once someone had a real clue about you, since it seemed they were largely basing it on looks?

My gameplay for the whole show was save my wine clue, make sure my wine clue is protected because I knew for a fact that's the only thing that's going to really tell anybody who my relation was.

Tell us about visiting Neverland Ranch and your Michael Jackson connection that you mentioned on the show, where it turned out his own relative was also competing.

Kudos to the show for putting me and Dedrick in the same house and just watching that develop. That must have been hilarious. I don't think we'd ever really met unless in passing. But spending time at Neverland was honestly a blessing. It is probably one of the most enjoyable experiences that I've ever been able to have. I legit had birthdays and Michael funded them all at Neverland where I would invite my entire school, literally not just my grade or my class, my entire school would come to Neverland — I did this on maybe three or four separate occasions for birthdays — and he would host everything and have the full crew working and doing all this stuff. I was able to spend time with Michael at Neverland and outside of Neverland and he was honestly the most genuine, caring, loving individual I've ever met in my entire life. I have nothing but respect for that man and his family and I probably wouldn't even be here today like this if it wasn't for the Jacksons.

Related: Whoopi Goldberg recalls inheriting land on Marlon Brando's island after his death in her new memoir

You also told a great story about having dinner with Elizabeth Taylor. Is there a favorite celeb encounter involving your grandpa you can share now that you couldn't on the show without giving away your identity?

One of my favorites is Ed Begley Jr. does this great, great impression of my grandpa that is literally top notch hilarious. … But Elizabeth Taylor, having Thanksgiving dinner with her was probably right up there at the top, and I was able to do that not just with my family but with her family as well. They welcomed us in and they were a beautiful bunch of people.

Do you think your grandpa would have enjoyed watching Claim to Fame and seeing your game play? 

Absolutely not. No. My grandpa was the most anti — When we would watch TV together, we would sit there and we would watch TV and we'd be watching a movie and out of nowhere he'd just mute it and he'd literally just sit there for God knows how long, watching this show or movie muted. And I'm sitting there, I'm just like, is he just messing with me? I don't understand. Is he messing with the family? There'd be multiple of us in a room and we'd just sit there and it's like, all right, well this has been muted for a while. My grandpa being my grandpa, nobody's going to say, "Hey gramps, unmute the TV. We're watching this." I think I came to realize later, it was like he was muting it because he wanted to see the actors acting. He didn't want to hear the music, he didn't want to hear the dialogue. He was like, can I believe this in real time with no sound? And then eventually he'd unmute it and we just missed five minutes of the movie.

There is an upcoming biopic about your grandpa starring Billy Zane. Has your family been involved with that at all or have you seen it?

As far as I know, my dad [Miko Brando] would be the only person that has any kind of connection with that. And I think they may have reached out to him, but we're not super involved.

Tell me more about your fried chicken necklace that you wore on the show. What does that represent for you?

I first wore it as a joke. I go to a lot of music festivals and concerts. I like to wear it to those. It's a good conversation starter. I wore it on the show just to level me out and ground me, just let me remind myself on the daily that this is just a game, don't take it too seriously. … Since I had the response, I started my own chicken on a chain company called Feeling Crispy. I'm starting to sell these chains, as well as try to have a few other things in the works that seem to be a little bit more fun.

Related: Eliminated Claim to Fame contestant gets ride home from famous relative: 'Uncle Jonny!'

What else is next for you?

Being on the show has probably been one of the better experiences of my entire life. I had so much fun. I want to do more. I've been looking at other shows that I could see myself being on, all competitive. I think that would be fun, just to go out there and just be kind of like a chicken on a chain face around the reality TV world.

What would be your top pick?

It would probably be either The Traitors or The Mole.

Who of the remaining three contestants do you think most deserves to win and why?

Honestly, at this point, everybody's been playing a really good game. I would just say not Adam. But honestly, out of all three, if any of them wins, I'm not going to really have any hard feelings, mainly just because I'm not the winner, so at this point who cares? But no, Mackenzie [because she] got me out. I'm a big Dodgers fan, so if the Dodgers are in the playoffs, they get knocked out by a team, I now want that team to win so that I lost to the world champions, not the runner up.

I need to go back to your Adam comment because he has been divisive in the fandom. People really can't figure out if he's maybe playing dumb and secretly pulling the strings all along.

He's not a stupid man. He has a lot to offer. He just had not much to offer in the game, so it was kind of fun. It was something that you could use, but then also it was like when you had to depend on him to keep his mouth shut it was very nerve-racking, especially up at the end. And so it's one of those things where it's like you love him, but you don't want to be teamed up with him. But honestly, looking back at it, if I would've seen that off the gate, I probably would've been able to use him to my advantage so much more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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