“The Masked Singer” season 10 winner Cow shares surprising reason he did the show twice

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter also reveals why he insisted on wearing the female version of his mask as opposed to the male one.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season 10 finale of The Masked Singer.

Holy Cow: The Masked Singer season 10 finale brought it.

From the opening moments when all four finalists joined forces to sing “What I Like About You” by The Romantics, to the night's final performance, Sea Queen, Gazelle, Cow, and Donut gave it their all. But there could only be one winner, and Cow really milked it with his performances of “Rhythm Nation” by Janet Jackson and “Take a Bow” by Rihanna.

In the end — after Donut was revealed to be John Schneider, Sea Queen was unmasked as Macy Gray, and Gazelle was Janel Parrish (and not Constance Wu, sorry Ken Jeong) — Cow was crowned the winner of season 10. Two panelists, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke, correctly guessed that it was Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Ne-Yo under those pearls and apron, while Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg and Jeong got it wrong with their guesses of Billy Porter and Usher, respectively.

Ahead of the reveal, EW spoke with Ne-Yo about why he chose to do the U.K. version of The Masked Singer before the U.S. version, why he picked the female version of the Cow mask, and his top-secret upcoming projects.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Congrats on winning The Masked Singer!

NE-YO: Thank you very much. I'm feeling good. Feeling real good.

You were previously on the U.K. version of the show as the Badger, and you were a finalist but didn't win. Is that why you wanted to do the U.S. version — to give it another go?

It wasn't so much about winning the U.K. version. Well, first and foremost, I did the U.K. version before the American version because I felt like on the American version, I would get caught quicker. People would recognize my voice a little faster. So I did the U.K. version thinking that I had a better shot at winning, and it turns out I didn't win and I was second runner-up, but that was fine. That was totally fine. I had a ball with it. And the same thing with this one. I had so much fun. Even if I hadn't won, I still would've just totally enjoyed the experience. 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.

Speaking of, you really leaned into this female cow character. Was that just to throw the judges off?

It was totally done in an attempt to throw them off. I have a million speaking voices. I can change it, I can do accents, I can do different inflections and everything with my speaking voice. My singing voice kind of is what it is, though. There's no way around it. So I knew that as far as talking and whatnot, I might be able to throw the judges off that way. But the second I started singing, somebody was going to catch me. I have personal relationships with Robin Thicke, Nicole Scherzinger, and with Nick Cannon. So those were the three that I was really the most concerned with fooling. I'm like, the second they hear me sing, they're going to know it's me. So when the producers came to me with the costume, they gave me the option. They [said] we want you to be the Cow, but you can be the male cow or potentially maybe the female cow? And I was like, oh, female cow all day. Let's go.

So we get into the costume and the costume, it is kind of a bulky costume. It's a female cow, so she's curvy, she's curvacious, she got humps and whatnot.... I grew up in a house full of women —my mother, my sister, my grandmother, five aunts, and me until I was 16 — so the female mannerisms, that wasn't difficult to lock into at all from the walk and the whole nine yards. That was the easy part. But again, I just was trying to do everything that I could to take the attention away from my singing voice. Robin was actually the only judge that was consistent with, I really think that's Ne-Yo. Nick even said it. He was like, "I know it ain't Ne-Yo." He said it out of his mouth, and I'm like, okay, I got it from here. If I'm this close to him 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."

That's funny considering you were messing with him on stage the whole season.

I was doing it on purpose. I was getting such a kick out of the fact that he had no clue. I'm like, I cannot believe that he doesn't recognize me. Okay, cool. So I'm going to mess with him now. I kept tapping him and playing with him. I was having a lot of fun with it.

How did the U.K. and U.S. versions compare? Were they different at all?

Not much difference at all. So I got to give much props and respect to the production of the Masked Singer because the security in that place, and I'm talking U.K. and US, is presidential. They are super adamant about nobody knowing who anybody else is.

In your final clue package, you said you did the show for your mom. Does she know you did the show yet?

I didn't tell anybody, but my mom and my kids called it right away from the first show. They were like, so when did you do this? And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, oh, come on. We've been listening to your voice our whole lives. We know you when we hear you. I held out as long as I could messing with my daughter. She's like, "So you're the Cow, huh?" I'm like, "No, whatcha talking about? I've never done The Masked Singer thing before." And she's like, "Dad, really, cut it out." 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.

So what's next for you?

Well, I got a international tour coming up in March of this year. We're going to start in the U.K. and then just work our way across the globe. I'm in the process of putting together a new album, literally as we speak — be looking for that probably right around the time the tour starts in March. And I'm super excited about just doing more of what I love. Again, music is something that's woven into my DNA. Even if there was no money in it and people didn't care to hear Ne-Yo songs ever again, I would just be annoying everybody with 'em because I can't stop it. I'm not going to. So yeah, man, I'm excited about the album. I'm excited about the tour, and I'm just going to continue doing what I love. And as long as people are paying attention, even if they stop paying attention, like I just said, I'm going to keep doing it because I love it.

I've also got some big screen and some small screen stuff in the works. I won't speak on it in too much detail right now because I don't like to count chickens before they hatch. But do expect to see me on the big and small screen relatively soon in some ways that you've never seen me before, which is definitely saying something considering the fact we're sitting here talking about me in a female cow suit. Yeah, man, I'm keeping busy and loving every minute of it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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