Ne-Yo Takes The Crown As Season 10 Winner Of ‘The Masked Singer’
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On Wednesday night (Dec. 20), The Masked Singer crowned its season 10 winner.
The finalists included Macy Gray as the Sea Queen, Janel Parrish as the Gazelle, John Schneider as the Donut, and this season’s winner, Ne-Yo as the Cow.
Of his win and costume, the Grammy winner confessed to Entertainment Weekly, “I never thought that one of my most fun stage performances would be with me dressed up as a female cow of all things. I never would’ve imagined that.” Throughout the season, Ne-Yo sang covers of Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation,” Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River,” Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell,” Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means To Me,” Bruno Mars’ “Treasure,” and his own hit, Rihanna’s “Take A Bow.”
Cow had judges torn with some guessing it was Usher, Billy Porter, or Jamie Foxx underneath the clever disguise. Ne-Yo did admit that he chose to be a female cow to throw judges off—considering he has personal friendships with two of them—but despite his attempts to conceal his identity, he can’t fake his singing voice.
“There’s no way around it […] the second I started singing, somebody was going to catch me,” explained the 44-year-old.
Robin Thicke remained consistent on his stance that it was Ne-Yo behind the mask, but Nick Cannon was on the fence. For the singer, he felt, “If I’m this close to [Cannon] and he doesn’t know that this is me, I’m home free. Even after the show, he was like, ‘Bro, you really shocked me. I really didn’t think that it was you. I really didn’t know.'”
The only other people Ne-Yo couldn’t fool were his children and mother. “My mom and my kids called it right away from the first show,” explained the father of four. He tried to deny it, but they were adamant.
They quipped, “We’ve been listening to your voice our whole lives. We know you when we hear you.”
Ne-Yo continued, “So yeah, they caught it right away. A lot of my friends, they didn’t catch it. They were fooled, but yeah, the family, immediate family, right away they knew it was me.”
As far as what’s next from the newly-minted winner, he’s working on a new album, will be embarking on an international tour with Mario in the spring, and teased that fans should “expect to see [him] on the big and small screen relatively soon in some ways that you’ve never seen [him] before.”
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