She might not have made it to Eurovision with “Attention”, but 2020 hasn’t turned out all that bad for Ulrikke Brandstorp. The Norwegian singer has won the first series of The Masked Singer Norway, where she was revealed on Saturday as the singer insider the Troll costume.
Ulrikke was one of eight local celebrities competing on Maskorama — the Norwegian edition of the popular masked singing contest.
She was disguised as Trollet — the Troll — a cross between the creature from Scandinavian folklore and the cute troll doll.
Over the past six weeks, the Troll proved to be one to watch. She performed songs of a wide variety of genres, including The Darkness’ glam rock anthem “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”, Stevie Wonder’s feelgood tune “Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing”, Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk”, The Last Showman anthem “Never Enough”, and Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion iconic duet “The Prayer”.
As the Troll, Ulrikke also covered a couple of Eurovision winners. She performed Loreen’s “Euphoria” and Carola’s “FÃ¥ngad av en stormvind”.
Ulrikke trolls the Masked Singer audience
As the Troll, Ulrikke couldn’t resist the opportunity to troll the audience. Speculation as to the Troll’s real identity was high, with many viewers sure that Ulrikke was inside the cute costume.
But in episode five, when the competing masked acts performed duets with established singers, viewers were surprised to see an unmasked Ulrikke turn up on stage to duet with The Viking.
Confusing things even more, Ulrikke uploaded a video of herself dancing backstage with the Troll!
But it was all an elaborate ruse. On Saturday night’s grand final, the Troll gave stellar performances of Whitney Houston’s “Higher Love” and Friends theme tune “I’ll Be There For You”. It was enough to win over Maskorama voters and the Troll ended up winning the series.
And when she removed her mask, it was indeed Ulrikke Brandstrop who was inside.
Ulrikke Brandstop growing list of Eurovision stars who have achieved grand final results this year in local versions of The Masked Singer.
Jan Dulles (Eurovision 2011) won The Masked Singer Netherlands, Sandra Kim (1986) won The Masked Singer Belgium and Nadine Beiler (2011) won The Masked Singer Austria. Kate Miller-Heidke (2019) was the runner-up on The Masked Singer Australia, Aminata Savadogo also finished second on The Masked Singer Latvia and as did Elina Nechayeva on The Masked Singer Estonia.
While Ulrikke won’t be competing in the 2021 edition of Norway’s national final Melodi Grand Prix, she is due to give a guest performance on the show.
What do you think? Would you like to see Ulrikke return to Eurovision? Which other Norwegian stars would you like to see in this season’s national final.
Two former Eurovision contestants (one from Spain, one from Italy) were revealed to be under the Peacock and Sunflower masks last night on The Masked Singer Spain semi-finals…
finally a great eurovision vocalist won one of those singing competitions, ulrikke have a great voice, also im happy that my favorite eurovision 2020 artist won, aminata, kate miller and elina nechayeva should have won too.
Her voice is majestic but the costumes from the Norwegian version are shockingly the worse I’ve seen. So dark and muddy. You can barely see the details on the mask. I wonder if it’s cultural or just a bad designer.
That was actually really clever. I was convinced it was her originally but she had me doubting myself!
Lol that’s a really good twist. I wonder if Viking new she was also the troll. In UK the masked singers don’t know who each other are even, I assume it’s the same in Norway.
They don’t know Who the other contastants is.
Sorry for being pedantic 🙂 But the great Stevie Winwood has “Higher Love”, Not Whitney Houston. It is ffrom his album “Back In the High Life” from 1986
Yes, you are correct that “Higher Love” is a Stevie Winwood, and Whitney Houston made a cover of that song. But Trollet sang the “Higher Love”-version from Kygo and Whitney Houston in the final, not the Stevie Winwood-version.
Are we sure she’s not gonna compete in Melodi Grand Prix 2021? She might be trolling us
With this having now happened, I suppose it would be unwise to put anything past her!