The Masked Singer: Aston Merrygold cringed realising he’d performed a Ne-Yo song in front of Ne-Yo without knowing

The Masked Singer’s Aston Merrygold admitted that he was completely awestruck after realising he had performed his idol Ne-Yo without even realising. 

The JLS star, who was revealed to be Robin in this Saturday’s finale, was unknowingly performing next to the So Sick singer for the past few weeks – only he never knew it, as Ne-Yo was dressed as a Badger. 

Going weeks without any idea, Aston admits he started getting an inkling after hearing Badger perform on stage halfway through the series.

But unfortunately he only found out for sure with the 10.6million others who tuned in on Saturday night, by which point Ne-Yo was back in the States.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk and other outlets he said: ‘The turnaround for performances are quite quick, so if someone’s on stage you then get to hear. 

‘If you’re in the middle [of the show’s line-up], for instance, you would be at the side of the stage when someone’s performing and they come off, and then you’d be at the side of the stage just after when the next person performs. 

‘The wildest one for me was obviously when I sang Ne-Yo’s song, and he was on just after me.

‘So I was like, “Yeah, it’s good. I loved it, really cool yeah.” Then you hear this voice, and I was literally getting unmasked, and my dresser at the time was sitting there, one of the only people that knows it’s me. 

‘I was standing with this puzzled look on my face like “I can hear Ne-Yo. I’m sure that sounds like Ne-Yo”. 

‘But nah, I just sang a flipping Ne-Yo song… the show wouldn’t go, “here we love this song, it’s great yeah, sing this song”, and then Ne-Yo be in the show. But yeah, they really did that. 

‘When finding it out was Ne-Yo for sure on Saturday, I was just like “Oh, s**t. Wow. Okay.” Like, full-on fanboy moment. 

‘I was a bit like “let’s go back and watch the performance” going “Did it go okay?! He would have seen it, and heard it!”’. 

‘Yeah, so Ne-Yo’s seen me sing his song. Okay, great. Cool.’ 

Badger/Ne-Yo was uncovered on Saturday night as well, placing second in the bonkers fancy dress celebrity talent show. 

He was beaten by Sausage, aka Joss Stone, who came first.

The Masked Singer is available now on ITV Player.

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