The Masked Singer Season 4 Has a New Challenge In Store for Judges

The Masked Singer already revealed one big twist it's got in store for Season 4 -- a fan voting component that lets viewers at home help determine who stays and who's sent back into the wild. Now, just days away from its fourth season premiere on Sept. 23, it's announcing yet another shakeup in the process: a feature that has judges competing for a trophy too. 

The Masked Singer's Costume Designer Teases What We'll See in Season 4 | TV Guide

As you'll see in the exclusive clip above, The Masked Singer is now having judges Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Robin Thicke, and Nicole Scherzinger write down their first guess for every performer's first song, after which the guess will be very dramatically locked away in a vault backstage. The idea is that the judges are competing now to see who'll get the most guesses right, and one of them will win the "Golden Ear trophy," which looks a bit like a very expensive ice cream scoop. It's not entirely clear exactly how this will play out -- aren't they going to say the name of the person they think it is anyway? -- but we do know this: Ken Jeong ain't taking that ear home. Over the years, he's been able to give good guesses as often as Nick Cannon has been able to resist the allure of a shimmery sequined accessory, which is to say rarely. If anyone's gonna take home that Golden Ear, it'll be Jenny, don't you think? 

The Masked Singer returns for Season 4 Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 8/7c. 

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