Rita Ora to Replace Nicole Scherzinger As ‘Masked Singer’ Judge in Season 11

Rita Ora on The Masked Singer
(Image credit: Fox)

Singer Rita Ora is joining the judges’ panel on The Masked Singer in season 11, which premieres next year. She will join Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg and Robin Thicke. 

Ora replaces Nicole Scherzinger. Fox said the two will “swap continents,” with Scherzinger set to perform in a play on London’s West End starting later this month. 

Season ten begins September 27. 

Ora’s new album is called You & I, and previous ones were called Bang, Phoenix and Ora. She has been a judge on The Masked Singer UK for four seasons and was a coach on The Voice Australia. Ora was also a judge on The X Factor UK and hosted America’s Next Top Model for one season

Ora will star opposite Jamie Foxx and Robert De Niro in the upcoming film Tin Soldier and will join Brandy in the Descendants sequel The Rise of Red.

Ora was born in what is now Kosovo and her family moved to London when she was a baby. 

Scherzinger heads to London to star in Sunset Boulevard. She will play Norma Desmond in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical at the Savoy Theatre when the show opens September 21. It is set to run into January 2024. 

Nick Cannon hosts The Masked Singer, which airs on Fox. The show has had Jeong, McCarthy-Wahlberg and Thicke as judges since it launched in 2019. 

Cannon executive produces The Masked Singer with James Breen and Craig Plestis. Breen is the showrunner.

Celebs who have performed incognito on The Masked Singer include Gladys Knight, Donny Osmond, Seal, Lil Wayne, William Shatner, Rob Gronkowski and Dionne Warwick. 

Michael Malone

Michael Malone is content director at B+C and Multichannel News. He joined B+C in 2005 and has covered network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television, including writing the "Local News Close-Up" market profiles. He also hosted the podcasts "Busted Pilot" and "Series Business." His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe and New York magazine.