Food Network Star Winner Crowned Tonight - Possible Spoiler?

Photo - Food Network

Tonight on the Food Network at 9pm ET/PT, the winner of Food Network Star will be revealed.  The remaining contestants who filmed pilots are Eddie Jackson, Dom Tesoriero, and Jay Ducote.  On the last episode Eddie did a pilot about Texas BBQ in unique places; Dom a pilot about visiting family owned Italian restaurants; and Jay a pilot about the country's best fried food.  All were traveling shows which seemed to be a bit different from the contestant's POV's throughout the season.

In an interview with a local Baton Rouge website, Jay said that his television show pilot was not his idea and was assigned by the Food Network.  This tells you that the contestants didn't actually get to pick their idea for their own pilot and were possibly assigned show ideas.

A commenter pointed this out, and it aligns with the possibility that Jay will win Food Network Star.  In April, a post on this website detailed the shows scheduled to air on the Food Network in 2015.  One of the shows had a working title of Deep Fried America and was described as "The host scours the country to find the most inventive and mouthwatering deep fried masterpieces."  This show was scheduled to begin in September 2015.  Food Network Star was filmed in early 2015, and the press release was about the upcoming shows was in April 2015, so it is possible this show was slated for the Food Network Star winner.  Other shows described in the April post had hosts listed (such as Curtis Stone, Michael Symon), but Deep Fried America didn't list a host.  A host may not have been listed so they didn't reveal the Food Network Star winner or they actually didn't have a host at the time.

Also, the Food Network Star Winner Poll on this website has Jay winning (although he posted a link on his social media which skewed results).  Finally, Jay is having a big watch party tonight in a Baton Rouge theater with 400-500 people expected.

So far everything points to Jay Ducote winning Food Network Star (including favorable editing throughout the season), and this post will be updated after the finale airs tonight to reveal the actual winner.

UPDATE - Food Network threw a little bit of a curveball and Eddie Jackson was crowned the season 11 Food Network Star.  Congrats to Eddie!  It appears his show will air on a Friday, October 9th at 10:30pm and will be called BBQ Blitz.  Pretty interesting that they gave him a primetime show rather than the standard Saturday/Sunday morning timeslot.

UPDATE - Another interesting tidbit about the finale - Jay explained at his viewing party that the finale was shot in June, and three different endings were filmed (meaning each contestant was filmed as a winner).  So even the contestants didn't know who was going to win until the finale aired. (Link)