‘The Masked Singer’ Winner, Monster T-Pain, Thought Rabbit ‘Was Going To Win The Whole Thing’

After nine nail-biting weeks, The Masked Singer finale aired on Fox on Wednesday, February 27, and a winner was crowned. The monster, whose true identity was revealed to be rapper and singer T-Pain, was named the Season 1 champ.

However, in a new interview with USA Today, the 33-year-old musician known for songs such as “I’m ‘n Luv (Wit a Stripper)” and “Bartender” said that he wasn’t expecting to get as far as he did in the singing competition and explains why he thought the rabbit “was going to win the whole thing.”

T-Pain, who was born Faheem Rasheed Najm, told the newspaper that he was a bit hesitant to join the show at first, but that all changed once he saw the fuzzy blue costume that he would get to wear for each performance.

“I didn’t get into it until I saw the choices for the costume. Once I saw [the] monster, I was like, ‘I just want to wear that thing,'” said the Grammy winner.

“I got into the [competition] just to wear the costume. As long as I got to wear it once, I was fine… I didn’t think I was going to get past the first episode.”

As it turned out, the monster wound up winning the hearts of the judges and audience members with his stunning performances of songs such as Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Want To Be,” and Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” and by sadly stating in pre-taped clips that after feeling ostracized by his peers because of past mistakes, it was now time for him to make a big comeback.

T-Pain thought that the rabbit, aka *NSYNC’s Joey Fatone, was going to win The Masked Singer, though.

“He really got into his character. He made that rabbit come to life,” the Atlanta resident explained.

But, since T-Pain was mainly there “to have fun,” while everyone else was acting “serious, concentrating on their singing or their performance,” he believes that helped him win the competition series.

“I don’t want to say I didn’t care, but it was like a nonchalant, ‘If I’m going, I’m going to go out with a bang,'” he said.

T-Pain coincided the release of his sixth studio album, 1Up, with the final episode of The Masked Singer, and will launch a tour in support of the record in March.

Meanwhile, The Masked Singer’s runner-up, the peacock, who was Donny Osmond, talked about his experience on the show during Thursday’s episode of The Talk, as previously reported by The Inquisitr.