The Rise and Fall of Vanilla Ice
I take back any criticism I've ever uttered about him. He's actually a smart dude.
I’m impressed with folks who hit The Big Time and wisely invest their fame. (Unlike, say, MC Hammer.) Vanilla Ice has apparently done so.
“Ice and I speak during a two-and-a-half-hour Zoom call in September. He dials in from the private theater inside his massive Florida rococo mansion, near Palm Beach. The estate contains 24-karat chandeliers, a lounge with platinum plaques, and a life-size Raphael from the Ninja Turtles; there are gilded ceilings, a quarter-million dollars’ worth of marble, and a custom-made pool designed to channel the turquoise waters of the Bahamas. It is exactly the house that you’d expect Vanilla Ice to have. He shrewdly invested his ‘Ice Ice Baby’ money, parlayed it into a fortune flipping real estate, and capitalized on that via The Vanilla Ice Project, a reality show that has aired for nine seasons on the DIY Network and turned him into hip-hop’s Bob Vila. When you talk to Vanilla Ice, you quickly realize that it was more than just privilege and luck that led him to stardom. He’s a master storyteller: charismatic, generous, and perceptive. The work ethic, self-belief, and sense of humor that allowed him to survive the withering backlash were there from the start. There is also the endearing charm of a lifelong hip-hop and funk obsessive.”
“Ice Ice Baby” turns thirty. Feeling old yet?
