“The Ugly Sweater is loosely based off of the titular clothes, where they are a multitude of zigzag stitches in many different colors. The head seems to be based on a yarn ball, with a goofy smile on their face and spiked-out hair,” and he sure knocked the socks off of both the panelists — Robin Thicke, Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg, Ken Jeong, and Rita Ora — as well as fans of The Masked Singer during the premiere of season 11 of the beloved competition series. His rendition of “The Best” by Tina Turner was nothing short of spectacular!
With Thicke guessing Charlie Wilson, Jeong guessing Nile Rodgers, and Ora guessing Verdine White, one of these panelists might be right on the money, with professional TikToker and Masked Singer sleuther @carpoolkyleoke pinpointing who might just be behind The Ugly Sweater.
Kicking things off, he explained the clues that were seen in The Ugly Sweater’s intro package, explaining to his nearly 15k followers:
“The Ugly Sweater talked about when he hit the scene, he was the epitome of style, and this singer and the band that he was in defined upbeat funk music. Ugly Sweater mentioned ‘I fell on some hard times though, and went from living in penthouses to sleeping on park benches,’ and this celebrity was homeless and slept on Hollywood Boulevard for years in the 1990s. He then talked about turning around his life, which is also something that this celebrity has done.”
He continued:
“Then we saw this blue album, because he’s a rhythm and blues singer, and we saw this train speed by him, which I think might be a nod to his Soul Train Icon Award. And of course, this Ugly Sweater that he got that said ‘Featuring’ on it, and this singer has been featured on tracks with artists including Jay Z, Beyonce, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, and Boyz II Men.”
After all of this sleuthing, @carpoolkyleoke determined that Robin Thicke’s guess was correct, as the Ugly Sweater is the one and only Charlie Wilson, an American singer, musician, songwriter, and the former frontman of the Gap Band.
The TikTok user then proceeded to break down some more clues that helped him land on this conclusion:
“Let me break down the rest of the clues that lead to a few more of his songs. We saw this rabbit and magician’s hat, and this is a nod to the Gap Band’s first album, Magician’s Holiday. Then we saw an alarm clock going off, which is a reference to their song ‘Early in the Morning.'”
While it is safe to say that The Ugly Sweater is Charlie Wilson, the only way to know for sure is to catch brand new episodes of The Masked Singer season 11 Wednesday evenings at 8pm ET/PT on FOX, as an unmasking will occur each and every week. With vocals that are smooth like butter, he might even be crowned the champion!