The “shoe beak” flutters to first place: singer Luca Hänni dressed as a giant bird won the ProSieben show “The Masked Singer”. The audience chose the 28-year-old as the winner of the eighth season on Saturday evening. He then took off his mask as the last celebrity of the season.
Hidden under the bird’s head with the wide beak, Hänni had given singing performances for several weeks – and, in his own words, had become more used to the expansive costume from week to week. “It was so much fun,” he said after his victory. “The shoebill has started to live.” However, he first had to learn how to use the large wings of his costume.
The unmasking of the Swiss was no longer really surprising. “We’re relatively in agreement here,” Ruth Moschner emphasized before the final reveal of the season. The rate team, which was supported in this show by last year’s winner Daniel Donskoy and runner-up Lars Dietrich, unanimously decided on Hänni. “All indications speak for it,” summarized Dietrich. As a last hint, a bear was displayed shortly before the decision was made – the heraldic animal of the city of Bern, Hänni’s place of birth.
“The Masked Singer” is not the first German music show that the Swiss has won. He gained notoriety in 2012 with his victory in the ninth season of “Deutschland sucht den Superstar”. In 2017 he won the RTL dance show “Dance Dance Dance” with musician Prince Damien (“DSDS” winner from 2016). In 2019, Hänni represented Switzerland in the “Eurovision Song Contest” and took fourth place.
In the finale of the music guessing show, he prevailed against the actress Felicitas Woll, who took second place as a hedgehog in a punk outfit. When the 43-year-old took off the prickly hedgehog’s head, she caused the only real surprise of the evening, because her identity remained a secret for the rate team until the very end. “I think it’s so blatant – we’re in the final and I don’t think we all have the faintest idea who you are,” Moschner said at the beginning of the show. It should stay that way until the end.
In addition, in the finale, singer Patricia Kelly (53) was revealed as the spider “Diamantula/Mystica” and presenter Melissa Khalaj (33) as “Frotteefant”. However, the audience and the rate team had already figured out both women before the unmasking. Above all, the distinctive voice under the spider mask had made the celebrities suspect again and again during the season that a member of the Kelly Family had to be underneath. The only question is, “which of the Kellys,” said Rea Garvey. Among the audience tips, Patricia Kelly had been at the top with a large majority since the first broadcast.
“To be honest, I had the request two years ago,” Kelly said after her exposure. But she initially refused because she was afraid of the mask and the heat underneath. Now she is grateful to have been there. “It was an unbelievable journey.” After participating in the show, celebrities repeatedly report that singing and dancing under the masks is very sweaty.
In “The Masked Singer” celebrities appear in elaborate costumes. They only reveal their identity if they don’t get enough votes from the audience and are eliminated from the competition – or win the final. In the eighth season, “Tatort” star Jan Josef Liefers was revealed as a kangaroo, pop singer Marianne Rosenberg as a mushroom, TV presenter Daniel Boschmann as a raccoon and actress Anna Loos as a seahorse. Most recently, the pop singer, actress and TV presenter Inka Bause (“Bauer sucht Frau”) had to leave the show last Saturday. She had arrived as smiling toast.
A date for a ninth season has not yet been officially announced. However, a survey among fans already suggests it: In the app that accompanies the show, the broadcaster is currently already asking for song requests “for the next season”.