The Coxnosecond time's the charm for "The Masked Singer" winner, who was unmasked on Wednesday night's finale of the singing competition show.

The four finalists, Sea Queen (Macy Gray), Gazelle (Janel Parrish), Cow (Ne-Yo), and Donut (John Schneider), joined forces for a quartet to sing "What I Like About You" by The Romantics before it was time for their last performances.

Ultimately, Ne-Yo, dressed as the Cow, won judges over with "Rhythm Nation" by Janet Jackson and "Take a Bow" by Rihanna, taking home the Season 10 Golden Mask Trophy.

The Grammy-winning singer previously competed on the U.K. version of "The Masked Singer," where he was a finalist but did not win.

"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," he told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Wednesday.

Ne-Yo continued, "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. "

His costume choice as a feminine cow was a deliberate strategy to throw judges off from his singing voice. "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," he said of the judges and show's host.

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"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 yard. That was the easy part," Ne-Yo added. "But again, I just was trying to do everything that I could to take the attention away from my singing voice."

Thicke and Scherzinger did end up guessing correctly that Ne-Yo was under the mask, but Ken Jeong thought he was Usher and Jenny McCarthy guessed Billy Porter.