The Masked Singer Finally Unveiled A Glee Star As Its Season 8 Winner
Karaoke is one of the most amusing forms of entertainment one can witness. Sometimes, an individual is able to wow the crowd and their friends with a surprising acumen for singing, while others might revel in their absolutely atrocious performance. Somewhere, somebody decided that the best form of karaoke might be by putting fantastic and well-designed costumes on celebrities and presenting them to a live audience and set of judges, and that's how we got "The Masked Singer." Though this is a facetious assumption, it doesn't deny the overwhelming popularity of the previously mentioned television.
Having just wrapped Season 8, "The Masked Singer" sees a truly impressive array of differently talented celebrities attempt to win by putting on dazzling performances while at the same time obfuscating their identity. Season 8's first contestant voted out was dressed as a knight and ended up being the legendary Starfleet captain William Shatner. From there, Season 8 of "The Masked Singer" sees George Foreman, George Clinton, Jerry Springer, Linda Blair, and Adam Carolla, to name just a few of the celebrities that put on their best singing and dance moves. The last three costumed stars left in Season 8 were characters known as Snowstorm, a trio of performers called the Lambs, and the Harp. In the penultimate episode of "The Masked Singer," Snowstorm was voted off the show and revealed as comedian Nikki Glaser. So who ultimately won Season 8?
The winner of Season 8 plays the role of Mercedes in Glee
The final episode of "The Masked Singer" came down to the Lambs and the Harp, and each chose their own songs. The Lambs decided to go with Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman," while the Harp went with Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory." All of the judges were completely blown away by the performances and heaped some serious praise on both the Harp and the Lambs. The next round of songs saw the Lambs go with Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," while Harp went with John Mayer's "Gravity." However, there can only be one winner of "The Masked Singer," and that went to the Harp, which meant that the Lambs were revealed first as the musical group Wilson Phillips, who are Chynna Phillips, Carnie Wilson, and Wendy Wilson.
Being crowned the winner by both the audience and judges, the Harp was exposed as the "Glee" cast member Amber Riley, who plays Mercedes Jones in the aforementioned series. Speaking with Variety, Riley said of her win, "It's very validating as an artist. It can get very discouraging in this industry, especially as a music artist. I'm pretty much a new artist, even though I've been in this industry a really long time — to hear all the amazing things that the judges had to say about me [has been validating]." She continued, "Even seeing online the things that people had to say about me and how positive feedback has been. My voice has been my lifeline for my whole entire life. It's saved me time and time again." One thing is for certain, though, and that is we will probably be seeing more of Riley and her impressive musical talent in the future.