Ice

by Ice-T

  DARLENE WAS ASSOCIATED with my career for so long. Even today—ten years into my relationship with Coco—I constantly get asked about Darlene. Darlene was the first long-term relationship in my life.

  When I came out of the Army I hooked up with Darlene. It was great between us for years. For more than a decade. Everything was cool. She was up front in my career, she appeared on all my album covers, was in all my videos. As I said, my whole ethos as far as the rap game was not to portray anything fake. Darlene was a natural bombshell and everyone knew it. She was an integral part of the promotion of my album Power because one of the record’s themes was the power of sex. Darlene developed her own loyal fan base after that. I always referred to her as my wife, although we weren’t officially married.

  And she was always ready to ride with me, even when the heat on me was most intense. I’ll never forget the time I went on Oprah—I was the first rapper she ever had on her show. But it wasn’t one of those “feel good” sessions O’s known for now. This was like a firing line, with all these angry women and critics like Tipper Gore and Juan Williams—now a big name political commentator on Fox—ganging up on me for the profanity and vulgarity they saw in my lyrics. It was me and my man Jello Biafra on the panel and at some point, everyone was going off on me on my use of the word “bitch.”

  Darlene stood up in the audience, came right to my defense, and checked them.

  “When he calls a bitch a bitch, then she is a bitch,” she said. “When he uses ‘bitch’ I don’t turn around.… He’s not saying all women.”

  Darlene’s cut like that. She’s mad loyal. She is the mother of my son, which is a much bigger deal to me than any marriage license.

  Our relationship was my first attempt to hold a family together. I grew up an orphan, so I wanted to be there for Little Ice. I was more stable at that time than when LeTesha was growing up. Things were going well—as well as they’d ever gone financially. I was recording hit albums and doing big-budget movies. We had a beautiful house in Sunset Plaza, a Bentley, sports cars, all the entrapments of fame. By any measure, I was doing well. But sometimes you hit a point in your career where you have to go full circle, when you have to start at the beginning again.

  I often say: “Love isn’t looking somebody in the eyes—it’s two people looking out in the same direction.” And the direction my career was taking at the time meant I suddenly had to go out and do rap and rock tours again. That’s when me and Darlene began to grow apart.

  We never had a bad relationship. We just drifted, lost the energy, lost the spark. What I learned from that relationship is this: Yeah, it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. But too much absence makes you not even need each other; you start to design a life without that other person. With me touring, being away from the home—gradually and unconsciously—we created two separate lives. It was never tense or stressful. In fact, it was a very comfortable arrangement.

  At the end of the relationship, I was out of the house more than I was home. I was having more fun going out with my friends. Darlene and I weren’t clubbing anymore. I’d be away for weeks, sometimes months; maybe just popping back home with my suitcases for a day at a time.

  Relationships with people in the entertainment industry are difficult. You’ve got to stay completely communicative with that person. This sounds like a cliché but it’s true: You’ve got to stay best friends.

  Then I ended up going to New York to do Law & Order, and that was a big jump. I had to physically leave Cali and get a new place in New York. Darlene had her own life with friends, family, and Little Ice in school out in L.A. So we weren’t a family unit anymore; we were living our separate lives.

  At some point during my first few months in New York, I realized what was happening. I couldn’t kid myself anymore.

  “You know, baby, we’re not really together,” I said. “You’re seeing other people. I’m seeing other people. We’re holding this facade together for the kid. Let’s just break up as man and wife. But we can keep it together for the kid, because we both love Little Ice. Let’s do this. But let’s not become enemies. That’s only going to hurt him.”

  We had to do it like that. We were civilized with each other. We weren’t angry. We weren’t bitter. We actually never fought, screaming back and forth with accusations and recriminations. “You did that!” “No, you did this!” None of that bullshit that you hear about so much in divorces. There was dirt on both sides of the fence. It was more like, “Look, we’re not living like we’re married. We’re living like we’re single. So why don’t we just make that official?”

  We broke up. She stayed in L.A., and I was still in New York City. This was really hard on Little Ice. He was eight years old at the time. But he wasn’t used to seeing me around anyway. For much of his childhood, I was gone for extended periods.

  I did the single thing in New York for more than a year and that wasn’t much fun. I’d been single before, when I was younger. But I’d never been single and famous. And I didn’t realize how some of these chicks are hunting money. They’re targeting. They’re focused. They’re out to hit you.

  For a long time, I’d been studying Sharon Osbourne—and when The Osbournes came out on MTV, I was hooked. I’d always loved Ozzy. He was one of the first rock stars I connected with back when I was a teenager, so now I was watching this older Ozzy, muttering, mumbling, stumbling around his mansion—looking lost half the time. I sat shaking my head. Does this motherfucker even know he’s on TV? Sometimes it wasn’t clear that he understood there were cameras following him.

  And then I realized it was all Sharon: Sharon running Ozzfest, running this reality TV show, Sharon running Ozzy’s day-to-day life. I don’t think any guy can look at Sharon and not respect her hustle. I mean, she holds that family together. She holds down her own career and Ozzy’s career. When it’s time for Ozzy to perform somewhere, she basically aims him at the stage, gives him a shove and he screams—

  “Yeah …!”

  Ozzy is great at what he does and Sharon allows him to do him.

  In my life, I’ve got the similar strengths and weaknesses. I’m great at what I do. I’m great at performing. I’m great at making money. I’ve learned how to turn my hustler’s eye for opportunity and apply it to the show business game. But I’m essentially an artist. When it comes to all the details, the more mundane side of business and personal life, I’m not real good at all.

  While I was single in New York, I found myself looking for a woman who would do for me what Sharon Osbourne was doing for my man Ozzy.

  I said this in an interview, and Darlene took offense. She took it as me saying that she couldn’t do it. After the interview came out, I had a long conversation with my ex about this. “Darlene,” I said, “don’t misunderstand me. It wasn’t you. It was me. I never asked you to.”

  And I’m not saying Darlene couldn’t have done all the things Sharon does for Ozzy, but I didn’t allow her to take that role. I was trying to play the regular male position. As a man your nature is not to want to show any weakness or talk about any serious problems; you just want to hold down the household. Your instinct is to say: “Look, I got this. I got it. Don’t ask how much money’s in the bank. Don’t ask me about the mortgage or the car notes. Even if I’m tight, baby, you can always shop. Just let me be the man.”

  I expected Darlene to be the mother, hold down the household, keep food in the fridge, and raise Little Ice while I was out busting my ass working. I was on some real old-fashioned shit.

  To be honest, I didn’t know that there even was another possibility. I couldn’t conceive that a guy—a man in entertainment, especially a rock-and-roll dude—could have an equal, a co-pilot, until I saw Sharon Osbourne at work.

  IT WAS ABOUT A YEAR after Darlene and I made our breakup official. I was at a video shoot for one of my friends. I was grumpy. Depressed. I’d been single for a while in New York and I wasn’t feeling too happy; I didn’t trust too many people—especial
ly new women I was meeting.

  One of my player buddies, Ricky Ricardo, saw Coco and he introduced her to me as a way to cheer me up. Right off the bat, I was annoyed. When Coco walked up to me, I didn’t want to even say hello. In general, I don’t like being introduced to girls. I feel like, Dude, let me do the fishing. Now that you done walked this chick up to me, am I obliged to be nice to her? So when I met Coco I was standoffish. Just, “Hey, how ya doin’?” The whole time, my back was turned.

  She was standing so close that I could smell her perfume. When I turned around, I looked at her teeth: she’s got these little perfect Chiclet teeth and, okay, that was stunning. Then I glanced down at her boobs—Goddamn! Still, in my head, I started putting her into the white-girl zone, thinking she was superskinny with fake titties. But then I saw the rest of her and thought, Okay, what the fuck just happened? That chick got a body on her. I was hooked.

  Coco’s got these ill Jessica Rabbit measurements. Superhourglass: 39-23-40.

  She’d walked off by the time I realized how smoking she was. Then the video was about to start shooting and I approached her again.

  “Okay,” I said, “I beg your pardon. Earlier when you were introduced to me, I was stunned. I didn’t have my words together. Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Ice.”

  “I know. I’m Coco.” I picked up right away that she’s from the Valley; she’s got that real soft Valley Girl voice.

  “Coco,” I said, “you’re drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “Thank you.”

  For the video shoot I had on a red snakeskin suit. Red gators. Black fedora. I never looked more like a pimp. And as always, being dressed like a pimp has me spittin’ game like a pimp.

  “Would you ever consider dating a gangsta rapper?”

  She thought about it for a second. “Well, if he’s nice …”

  “Baby, you take the ’n’ off ‘nice’ you get ‘Ice.’ ”

  I know it sounds like a scripted line, but honestly, ain’t nobody ever hit me with that opening before. I wouldn’t even say that in a lyric—“Yo, I’m nice, take away the ’n’ …” Nah. I just freestyled it. I think the pimp gods sent me that crazy-ass line.

  She burst out laughing. Then I qualified the customer. “I mean, am I bothering you here? Are you married? Is your boyfriend here?”

  “No, it’s all good,” she said, giving me the green light.

  We started kicking it. Coco told me she was a swimsuit model, bouncing between L.A., Vegas, and Arizona. She’d done some work for Playboy. We were flirting, the banter was good, but then I put the brakes on the vibe.

  “Cool,” I told her, “but I don’t need just another number.”

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I wasn’t looking for a quick hookup and I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I’d just come out of a fourteen-year relationship with Darlene. I didn’t want to get back into that; the breaking up and drama wasn’t something I was ready for. On the other hand, I can’t front—Coco was hot.

  Fortunately, she’d been out there already. She’d been with the rich guys, been with the broke guys, been with the nice guys and the bad boys—she’d seen it all. Coco wasn’t looking for another number, either. Still, I had to take it slow. You can’t come right out tell a chick you just met—no matter how smoking—that you’re really looking for a girl to hold you down, to be your co-pilot in life.

  People think Coco is the ultimate party chick, but she’s not. She’s much more of a stay-at-home-and-scrub-the-kitchen-sink-type chick. I found that out a few weeks after I met her. She came to New York with one of her friends to visit me. We were hanging out one afternoon, watching a game on TV. And while I’m sitting there with my friend Mickey, for some reason, Coco starts to vacuum my house. Came through the whole crib, getting the dust out of every nook and cranny. After she vacuumed, my carpet looked brand-new. I looked at Mickey and said, “What the fuck is going on here?”

  That’s a lesson it took me a while to learn. When a woman wants you, she’ll move on you domestically. If you’re dating a chick and she won’t pick up one of your socks, she doesn’t give a fuck about you. She just wants a meal. But once a girl starts cooking for you, reorganizing your clothes closet, it means she wants you. Too often men don’t have the first clue about what’s going through a woman’s mind. When a woman comes over and starts vacuuming and folding the towels in your bathroom, she’s planning on moving in.

  We had a good weekend. But we were still in the casual dating phase. The next time she came back for about twelve days. This was like a test run going full throttle in “Ice mode.” She came to the set of Law & Order; she came with me while I gave a college lecture; she went to an Ice-T hip-hop show—basically, she had to run at my speed.

  Like Rakim says, “No time to comb your hair, baby, brothers is bustin’ at me.” I didn’t plan it that way—that was just my week’s schedule—but it was a little exercise in keeping up with me. She passed with flying colors. She didn’t want to be left at home for a minute. If I had to get up at five in the morning to get to the set, she got up at five in the morning. She was getting ready in twenty minutes; she knew how to change her vibe from dressing sexy-fly for the rap concert to the more conservative lecture circuit to being stylish but understated on the set of SVU.

  The days flew by. When it came time to head back home, she looked sad. We were already at the airport gate.

  “What’s up?” I said. “You don’t want to go home?”

  “No.”

  We stood at the gate in silence for a while.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “We’ll have to take this to the next level.”

  When she was back West, I spent a few days in a haze. I was trippin’. I’d never been in this situation in my life. Because now I was stationed in New York, working a job with long-ass hours, and I liked a chick on the other side of the country. I couldn’t bounce—my shooting schedule on Law & Order had me tethered to New York City.

  So I called Coco and told her to come back to New York. And this time to bring a lot more clothes.

  I didn’t plan on her becoming my “Sharon Osbourne” right away. She just naturally started to handle all my daily scheduling, organization, and communications.

  At that point, Sean E. Sean was acting as my personal assistant. He was living at my crib, running everything day-to-day. About a week after Coco came out to New York, I saw Sean packing his bags in the spare bedroom.

  “What up, homey?”

  “Yo, man, I’m out,” Sean said. “You don’t need me no more. She got this.”

  THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME in my life when I entered into a relationship with a woman fully knowing what I wanted, what I expected, and most important, how to communicate it to her.

  In life, I’ve learned, whatever you want from your woman, know that’s what you want. Then fucking tell ’em. If you want a girl that brings home girls, tell ’em. You may not get the girl you want but eventually you’ll find a girl who’ll do that. Might as well be upfront and say, “Baby, I’m looking for a chick that’s gonna bring home chicks.” But you better know that’s what you really want because that’s a whole fucking world in its own. Dealing with two girls or three girls—all that bullshit. Don’t get me wrong—that’s fun to do when you’re single. That will not work in a relationship.

  People think of Ice and Coco as always pushing the limits. People think we party all the time, but practically the only time they snap pictures of us is when we’re at some red-carpet premiere or we’re clubbin’ and she’s got on some fluorescent-pink micromini and matching stilettos. Yo, that’s how everybody dresses when they’re clubbin’.

  Like I told her from the jump, I didn’t need another number. I didn’t need another party chick. I needed a woman full-time in my life and in my career. I wanted that Sharon Osbourne, that co-pilot, but I’d never tried it out before. This was a complete one eighty for my mental. I was hardwired to feel that having someone help me like that would make
me less strong.

  It didn’t take long for Coco and me to start working together before I realized how much I loved it. I’ve got a pretty short attention span for the mundane details of life. I’m the type of dude that feels I don’t really need to know what’s happening three Sundays from now—I don’t need to know what’s happening next Sunday. When I wake up in bed next to Coco, I just need to know what I have to do today; and then by the middle of the day, let me know what’s happening tomorrow. I tell her to leak it to me, bit by bit, once I’m already up and rolling. By now she knows what I’ll do, what I won’t do; and she knows how to diplomatically decline offers that I just don’t have time for.

  The biggest problem when we started working together was my communication style. A lot of times I would chop her head off. It wasn’t personal; it’s the way I get sometimes. I can be abrupt as fuck. I was used to telling Sean E. Sean how to get shit done in as few words as possible. And we’ve been boys for so long, we’d dispense with the niceties like “please” and “I very much appreciate it.” I’d be abrupt with Coco and then I’d see it affecting her. I’d see her puppy-up, thinking I was angry with her.

  “No, baby, that’s just the tone I use when I’m in business mode.”

  Over time, we worked out some codes. Now we’ve got “on the clock” and “off the clock.” That means during the day we’re doing business, and a lot of the formalities, the politeness, just ain’t in the mix. I’ll say, “Yo Coco, call so-and-so,” turn around and she’s already dialing the cell.