All the Celebs Who Have Won The Masked Singer

“When I do something, it’s with the full intent and my intention was winning.”

The Masked Singer just kicked off season 12 and the stars are already shining behind their over-the-top costumes. Since the show premiered in 2019, quite a few massive celebrities have taken home the highly coveted Golden Mask trophy. These celebs managed to keep their identity under lock and key while the judges, Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger, and Robin Thicke, took their guesses about who was wearing the mask. While these winners weren’t always able to dupe everyone, they definitely earned their place in Masked Singer history.

Look back on all the stars who have won The Masked Singer…

1. T-Pain

T-Pain took home the Golden Mask on season one of the show, during which he duped viewers with his impressive vocals. For many years, fans had only known him to use Auto-Tune so when they heard his real voice, they didn’t make the connection. After his win, T-Pain said he was glad people got to recognize his true talents.

“I feel like there’s been a weight lifted off my shoulders and now that everyone knows what I can do, I feel like it’s giving me a second win,” he told People. “When you hear the name T-Pain, you automatically think Auto-Tune. I just wanted to get rid of that. I’ve been proving this for years and years and people still said I was only famous because I used Auto-Tune. But now, you know, that’s not true.”

2. Wayne Brady

In 2019, Wayne Brady got suited up as the Fox and made it all the way to the finale of season two. While his name had been brought up during the prior season and he was then rumored to be the Thingamajig during season two, he managed to evade the judges and took home the Golden Mask.

“When I do something, it’s with the full intent and my intention was winning. Whether I won or not, that’s up to someone else, but my intention was absolutely to win. I wanted to have people not be influenced by my face or that I make them laugh on TV to just to listen,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

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3. Kandi Burruss

Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kandi Burruss became the first female winner of The Masked Singer when she took the stage as Night Angel. After winning, Kandi said she had mostly stopped singing before being offered to appear on the show and it had helped her regain her confidence.

“I think it’s a boost of confidence. I didn’t know I was going to win. Of course, you would love to win. I guess in my mind I wasn’t totally sure. I wasn’t totally confident about it. You just go in there and do your best,” she shared with EW. “There's no limit to what you can accomplish. Like, stop psyching yourself out. Stop getting in your own head, telling yourself what you can't do. Those are the things that I say to other people. This show made me apply that to my own life.”

4. LeAnn Rimes

At the end of season four, the Golden Mask went to LeAnn Rimes. The Grammy-winning singer took the stage as the Sun, which she says was a “visual representation” of everything she wanted to put out in the world. She explained that she was grateful that the show gave her the opportunity to escape the box she was often trapped in by the music industry.

“I’ve kind of fought that for a long time of people not knowing where to put me and they want to put me in a box and the more people want to do that, the more I want to claw my way out of it. It's just my rebellious side,” she shared with ET. “[I] got to really kind of embrace that on this show and actually celebrate that. ’Cause every song was different, from a different genre.”

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5. Nick Lachey

Nick Lachey took home the Golden Mask during season five of The Masked Singer. While he was able to fool the judges as Piglet, it turns out that some special people figured it out right away -- his three children! Looking back, Nick says when his family tuned into the first episode, his daughter could immediately tell it was his voice.

“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,’” he told People. “They recognized my voice immediately.”

6. Jewel

Jewel won it all as the Queen of Hearts on season six of The Masked Singer. During her time on the show, she says she really got to focus on her technical ability as a singer -- which she had never gotten to do throughout her career. She explained that many of her songs were “not demanding vocally” and she wanted to show off her range.

“It was actually a goal of mine with the show. I've never written for my voice, which is weird. I write my own songs; you think I would write a song that showed off my singing! But I only cared about the story,” she told Yahoo! Entertainment. “And so for this show, actually something I wanted to really focus on was to show my range and technical ability.”

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7. Teyana Taylor

In 2022, Teyana Taylor took the stage as the Firefly on season seven and made it all the way to the finale. While she didn’t dupe all of the judges, she did end up winning the show, calling it an amazing experience where she could sing without judgment.

“I was like, ‘This would really be something where I could just sing without politics and judgment. I think that’s why it was such an emotional journey for me. It was nothing that I looked at as just, like, fun and games,” she shared after her win.

8. Amber Riley

Former Glee star Amber Riley showed off her vocal chops on season eight of The Masked Singer while performing as Harp. With such an ornate costume, Amber says it was a challenge not to be able to connect to the audience through facial expressions and dance moves -- but it helped her to let her voice shine.

“Because I am a performer, I use my whole body to perform. I dance, I use facial expressions, you know, and not being able to connect with people fully and only being able to connect with them through movement and my voice, was actually a great challenge for me,” she told EW. “But I was kind of encouraged to know my voice kind of speaks for itself. And that's not something that I would have been able to discover had I not done the show. So that was a pretty cool thing for me.”

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9. Bishop Briggs

Season nine belonged to Bishop Briggs who performed as Medusa. While she almost got eliminated earlier in the season, she came back to win the Golden Mask. After her win, Bishop explained that she’d been watching the show since the beginning and was drawn in by the focus on vocal abilities.

“I’ve been a fan of the show really since it began and I wanted to experience and lean into this idea that it's about the emotion that you’re putting across. It’s about your vocal and it's not about how you look. It's really about making that connection with the people in front of you. That really drew me to the show,” she told People.

10. Ne-Yo

Ne-Yo took the stage during season 10 as Cow -- and was completely committed to duping as many people as possible. Not only did his costume entail a female cow outfit but he also tried to throw viewers and the judges off by performing songs that weren’t his usual style.

“We picked songs that were slightly outside of my wheelhouse, songs that you wouldn't regularly expect to hear me singing. I was very, very adamant about, ‘Listen guys, I do not want to get discovered quickly. Let's figure out ways to throw them off,’” he shared with People.

He continued, “It's been, in a word, fun. I had an absolute ball with it. It was a lot of fun stepping outside of the Ne-Yo box for a minute and being somebody else. I genuinely enjoyed the experience and I would do it again if I felt like I could get away with it.”

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11. Vanessa Hudgens

Vanessa Hudgens is the most recent star to take home the Golden Mask after winning season 11. The actress, who performed as Goldfish, explained that her fans had been asking for more music from her for years so she thought it was a good opportunity to share her vocals again -- and have a little bit of fun.

“You know, it wasn’t really about winning, honestly. I am my own worst critic and I will always be my hardest critic in the room at all times. I just wanted to have fun, and it was a really freeing experience for me to be anonymous and have nothing to do with my name or fame or celebrity. It was a really special experience,” she told Billboard.

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