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Whatever Happened To Rapper Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, is best known for his 1990 smash hit "Ice Ice Baby." When Van Winkle first hit stardom at the tender age of 21-years-old, he took a beating from critics who called the rapper an imposter for appropriating a black art form. Van Winkle just taunted them back: "To the people that try to hold me down, kiss my white butt," he shouted after accepting an American Music Award in January 1991.
After the public drew tired of Van Winkle's act, his career took a nosedive. He got involved with heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy, which almost killed him. He was saved by friends who rushed him to the hospital. The whole episode was a valuable lesson for Van Winkle who realized that life was not about money.
Today he lives in Florida with his wife Laura, 30, their daughters, Dusti Rain, 5, and Keelee Breeze, 2, and a number of pets, including a kangaroo named Bucky. In his leisure, Van Winkle hang-glides, watercraft, snowboards and races motocross professionally. He even appears as one of the motocross racers in the PlayStation game "Championship Motocross," released in 2001, which features a hardcore version of "Ice Ice Baby."
Van Winkle also recently started a real estate company that helps develop homes. He also is still performing and touring to promote his new double CD Bi-Polar, which is a rap-heavy metal sound. He describes his new album as a continuation of 1998's Hard to Swallow, a CD that featured songs such as "A.D.D." (for Attention Deficit Disorder, a condition from which he suffers), which included the lyric, "I just can't hide from myself."
In retrospect, Van Winkle mostly blames the music industry for the hardships he has faced. When asked why he went along with the image they created for him, he says he did it for money. "I think anybody, given the opportunity -- no matter who you are -- would've done the same damn thing at my age, for millions of dollars," Van Winkle says. But today, he says, he's a different man. "I'm more concerned with just keepin' it real."
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