Vanilla Ice recently claimed to have been buddies with Pablo Escobar prior to actually knowing that the Columbian drug lord had a great deal of blood on his hands, and he has now elaborated on their unlikely friendship.
In a new interview with TMZ Live that aired on Tuesday (December 19), the “Ninja Rap” hitmaker went into detail about spending time with the cocaine trafficker in Miami during the 90s.
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“[Escobar and his people] knew that I was into racing boats, and back then, we didn’t have, y’know, Google,” he began. “You couldn’t check people out and you really didn’t ask anybody what you did for a living.”
He continued: “He really did a lot of great things for the boat industry because the money he spread around to, I guess, traffic the drugs also spread into the racing boat community […] All that money and stuff was going into the boat racing community, which I was a part of.”
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The 56-year-old also recalled how the most-wanted criminal had “drug runners” using “special boats that’re all made of black carbon fiber” in and around Beer Can Island in Florida.
The rapper remained oblivious to the people he was hanging out with, thinking they were “just racers,” and it wasn’t until the FBI questioned him that he realized who they were and what they were known for.
Watch the full interview below:
Vanilla Ice was unknowingly partying with Pablo Escobar in the 90s! @vanillaice came on TMZ Live to talk about their friendship. pic.twitter.com/DeczgGC4D3
— TMZ Live (@TMZLive) December 19, 2023
Last month, Vanilla Ice revealed that he was “friends” with Pablo Escobar and members of the Medellín Cartel, and would often host them at his house back in the day.
In an interview with Vlad TV from late November, he recalled some of his wild hangout sessions with the notorious crime boss and his associates at his mansion in Star Island, Miami Beach, which involved racing boats and cars.
“I hung out with Pablo Escobar many, many times. And Juan Almeida, Pepe Nunez, Ralph [“Cabeza” Linero] and everybody from Cocaine Cowboys. We were all friends,” he said. “They would land helicopters in my house constantly on Star Island, come into my house, I had food just for them in the refrigerators.
“They would take me in the helicopter and we would go to all these great events, race boats and look at all the cool stuff that they were making. I never [asked] questions, we didn’t have Google, I don’t know who these people are. I thought they were businessmen. They liked to race boats like I did.”
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Detailing what the cartel leader was like, Ice said: “Pablo was a great person in person — this sounds ridiculous! First of all, I had no Google. You don’t go up to people and go, ‘What do you do for a living?’
“I have no idea, bro. The guy’s loaded, he has a [Ferrari] Testarossa, I had a Porsche that’s smoking. We raced. I raced Pablo Escobar. I smoked him. We would go out and race boats. We were always on boats. They was always a bunch of bikinis floating around everywhere.”
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Vanilla Ice did not clarify when exactly he hung out with Escobar, but the rapper did not become wealthy and famous until 1990, with the release of his smash hit “Ice Ice Baby,” whereas the drug lord surrendered to the authorities in 1991.
