Ken Jeong Reveals How ‘The Masked Singer’ Flips the Reality TV Script

The Big Picture

• The Masked Singer
  thrives on unpredictability and surprises, with unscripted moments capturing pure magic.
• In an interview with Collider, panelist Ken Jeong appreciates the contestant’s role as the “stars” of the show, highlighting the addictive simplicity of guessing games.
• With a background in music, Jeong reveals it was his mom who encouraged him to join the show, leading to his iconic “Homer Simpson” persona and career-changing opportunity.

Since its anticipated premiere in 2019, The Masked Singer has continued to captivate audiences. Inspired by the smash hit South Korean series, King of Mask Singer, the show introduced American viewers to the unique blend of celebrity mystery, dazzling performances and hilarious comedic panelists. As the show digs past the sequins and feathers of its elaborate costumes for its 12th season now airing on Fox, the reality competition continues to surprise fans with fresh talent and unexpected reveals. The series has not only survived on network TV, but it’s evolved into a cultural phenomenon — one that panelist, Ken Jeong is consistently in awe of. In an exclusive interview with Collider, Jeong, who has been on the show from the very start, reflects on the show as it enters its milestone season and reveals how its unpredictable nature keeps viewers hooked.

“You couldn’t script the twist that happened on the show. It happens organically,” he explains, adding how the series captures the beauty of its unscripted, spontaneous moments in the most shocking ways. For Jeong, that authenticity, paired with the sheer joy of witnessing legendary voices perform in secret, is why the show continues to thrive. His enthusiasm for the magic that unfolds week after week is contagious, and as he reveals, after 12 seasons, he’s still having as much fun as ever.

The Unscripted Magic of Organic Twists Make ‘The Masked Singer’

“If you go with the flow, there is art in everything.”

One of The Masked Singer’s most significant elements is its unpredictability, something Jeong deeply appreciates. The unscripted nature of reality TV often leads to moments of pure magic, but a lot of it relies on its contestants who he asserts are the “magic” of the show. “It’s all about the contestants and the singing. Those are the stars of the show,” he explains. “There’s something wonderfully addictive about trying to have a guessing game of who’s under the mask. It’s such a simple concept. In fact, it’s beautiful. There are no stakes, there’s no cash and prizes in this — it’s just celebrities under a mask singing, and it’s so novel, and it’s so simple.”

Admitting how the structure is an “effective” one, Jeong adds when it’s done right, it’s a “beautiful” hour of television that has “inherent twists and turns” that only happen when it’s unscripted programming. “You couldn’t script the twist that happened on the show. It happens organically. It’s something that I’ve learned as a performer, not having done unscripted before, that if you go with the flow, there is art in everything.”

Stressing the “art” of unscripted television, Jeong admits that since dabbling in both realms, he believes those experiences in unscripted have helped inform him in the scripted world. “Having come through those experiences and the fields of that, it’s interesting,” he says. “It makes you look at a script in a different way, too, of the twists and turns, and how you want, in a movie script, for it to be organic, and you want it to come wonderfully out of nowhere, which is what the unscripted world does so well.”

‘The Masked Singer’ Came at an Interesting Time

“I wanted to do things that were kind of different than what I was doing.”

Whether it’s a surprising reveal of a legendary performer or an emotional performance that tugs at one’s heartstrings, The Masked Singer thrives on its ability to surprise. It’s this aspect that Jeong admits is a true “gift that keeps on giving” to the audience. “I don’t think any of us knew that very first season that we shot that it would be, I believe, the highest-rated episode of reality competition series in, like, eight or nine years. It was some amazing metric,” he says, comparing it to the network’s former successful series American Idol. This surprise victory has kept The Masked Singer not only alive but thriving, as its unique format has turned it into a beloved fan-favorite that sets new standards for the genre.

Revealing how he’s always loved the singing competition and those similar to it, The Masked Singer was also at a peculiar time in Jeong’s life, which he discloses came right after his fan-favorite sitcom, Dr. Ken was canceled after two seasons on ABC. “I remember getting that show… and not really knowing what I was doing,” he recalls. “It was in this kind of transition, almost like, as they say, between high school and college, sometimes students opt for a gap year. In 2018, when we shot The Masked Singer’s first season, I was doing stand-up, I had a Netflix special [Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho], working on that, and then doing The Masked Singer so, I had more free time on my calendar, and I wanted to do things that were kind of different than what I was doing.”

He adds after having the experience of a show with his own name and a degree, he wondered where to go after this. “It was… I wouldn’t say an existential crisis, but it was an existential debate of, like, ‘Okay, what do I do? Where do I go?’ And I think the answer was just, ‘Have fun.’ Looking back, ‘Just have fun in whatever I’m doing.’ You see me on The Masked Singer, it’s in real-time, having a laugh. Basically, I have a job where I get paid to ad-lib and improvise stupid thoughts of mine for a living.”

We Have Ken Jeong’s Mom to Thank for ‘The Masked Singer’

Ken plays the “Homer Simpson” version of himself on the Fox competition series.

The Community actor adds being on The Masked Singer is also the “longest” he’s ever done a series and continues to have a “blast” doing it. “I’m still genuinely laughing and having such a good time, I think, because I never thought in a million years I would be on a panel show ever,” he says. “It was not my goal. In my head, this is like a music appreciation class to me because I’ve heard some of the best singers of all time sing on the show, legends. There are just too many to name.”

With the show now having almost 200 contestants on the show since its start more than five years ago, he is grateful to have heard “some of the best voices of all time” on the show. “Often you get moved to tears,” he humbly says, sharing how his passion for music runs deep. For those curious, Jeong even took a jazz appreciation class while at Duke. “A lot of people don’t know that about me. I do have a background, as a kid — I’m not a professional musician by any stretch of the imagination — I played piano and guitar. Even to promote the first season of The Masked Singer, I went to Korea where The Masked Singer originated, and sang. I participated… as a kind of demo. I was a guest on the Korean version of The Masked Singer, and so I got a deeper appreciation early on of what it’s like to be a contestant and how stressful and grueling, yet exhilarating, it is to be under that mask and sing.”

Sharing how it’s his “mom’s favorite show” as his parents watch a lot of Korean programming, he says when he was offered the panelist role, it was his mother that he turned to for advice. “She really encouraged me to do the show because I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know. I’ve never done a panel show before,’” he says with the exception of one guest spot on America’s Got Talent in 2018. “I think The Masked Singer producer saw me on that show, and then I got offered, and I was like, ‘Yeah! I had so much fun doing it.’” He goes on to share how his mom knew it would be a “game-changer” for him. “She actually said, ‘It will change your career for the good.’ And it did.”

Adding how she sent him a bunch of YouTube links to the Korean version, it was then that Jeong admitted he knew how to do it. “Then it was my idea to kind of play almost like the Homer Simpson of myself and just be confident yet so dumb,” he laughs. “If anything, I’ve taken that to the extreme now, where the audiences are booing my guesses, and I’m saying something like, ‘How dare you? I’m a doctor. I was in The Hangover! It’s Bjork — I know what I’m talking about,’ when it’s Patti LaBelle. So it’s like a nice sleight of hand and a little bit of performance art. It’s lovely. Now, quite frankly, it’s like second nature. I mean, [my co-panelist] Robin Thicke and I say, ‘We can do this in our sleep now.’ It’s just so much fun.”

The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on Fox and streams the next day on Hulu in the U.S.

Watch on Hulu