MC Stan wins Bigg Boss 16, beats Shiv Thakare to win top prize in grand finale

Rapper Altaf Tadavi aka MC Stan was crowned the winner of Bigg Boss 16 in a grand ceremony in Mumbai on Sunday night. A little after midnight, the host Salman Khan announced Stan’s name as the winner. He receives prize money of Rs 31.80 lakhs along with a brand new Grand i10 Nios car, along with a trophy shaped like a golden unicorn. MC Stan beat Shiv Thakare, who was the other remaining finalist i the grand finale, once Shalin Bhanot, Archana Gautam, and Priyanka Chahar Choudhary had been eliminated.

Raised in Pune, Maharashtra, Stan earned fame in the Indian rapping scene after Wata, his rap battle video with Emiway Bantai, went viral on YouTube. Stan started singing qawwalis at the age of 12 and was soon introduced to the American hip-hop sensation Eminem. He christened himself MC Stan after Eminem released his single Stan and his fans began calling themselves ‘stans’.

Bigg Boss has been one of the most prominent and viewed shows on Indian television for over a decade. The finale began telecast on Colors TV and Voot from 7pm on Sunday, February 12, bringing to an end several months of entertainment, tasks, infighting, and competition. The grand finale featured stand up acts from Bharti Singh and Krushna Abhishek as well as dance performances by the finalists. Apart from this, the occasion also saw some reunions as some of the most popular ex-contestants from the show returned.

Speculations and polls around it began days before the winner was crowned. In a Twitter poll conducted by DNA, fans had a clear favourite as over half the total votes fell in favour of Priyanka Chahar Choudhary. The actress polled 50.5% of the 4940 votes in the poll, closely followed by Shiv Thakare with 38.6% of the total votes. MC Stan lagged far behind in the counting.