Ice-T fans will get a chance to see more of the actor behind the scenes thanks to a reality TV series currently in development. The rapper opened up about his upcoming show while chatting with ET’s Rachel Smith about season 25 of Law & Order: SVU, premiering Jan. 18 on NBC.
The former Ice Loves Coco star explained that the new series will have the same production team and a similar focus as the E! series that ran for three seasons from June 2011 to January 2013. The series will star Ice-T, his model wife, Coco Austin, and their 8-year-old daughter, Chanel.
This time around, Ice-T would take a more supporting role in the series.
“They’re developing a show called Coco Loves Chanel… I’m kinda like a co-star in [this] one, you know, but it’s a fun show, it’s a loving show,” he shared about the developing series. “It’s about Coco [and] her girlfriends. They all have kids, it’s like a mommy show, but it’s funny.”
Chanel is already on her way to being a star like her celebrity parents; Coco previously opened up to ET about her decision to momentarily put her career on hold to manage Chanel, who signed with youth talent agency, Zuri, when the family was on hand to watch Ice-T receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last February.
“I like it, more than managing myself. Actually, I put my stuff aside for so long, because I love doing her more than me,” Coco told ET. “You know, I kinda stepped up a little bit and started doing more social media, but I like having more fun with her.”
Coco said that, despite having connections in Hollywood, she wanted Chanel to land at an agency the old-school way.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, you know someone in Hollywood. You know a friend. You should …’ That’s the easy route,” she said. “I really wanted to go by the book. I wanted her to audition. So, I don’t know if you know this, or people out there, that you have to audition to [sign with an] agency. So, they have to be accepted. So, she auditioned for a prestigious agency, called Zuri, and she got in and, yeah, we just started. We’ve been auditioning for Sesame Street and all that good stuff! So, you never know what might come through.”
But, as Ice-T shared with ET, he’s cautious of how reality TV can start demanding stars “start doing things you normally don’t do for content.”
“This is a reintroduction with the kid, this is a whole new show. So it was like, we had a good experience with E!, so we said, let’s do it again one more time. So maybe let that show go for two or three seasons, then stop it,” he said.
While Ice-T’s stint with reality TV may be short-lived, it’s the exact opposite when it comes to his iconic role as Sergeant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
Having joined the series in 2000, with over 400 episodes under his belt, Ice-T became the longest-running male actor in a TV series in 2022. His co-star, Mariska Hargitay, holds the title for women.
“It’s kind of cool we got that honor. It’s cool because, you know, everybody knows I was only supposed to be on the show for four episodes,” the actor recalled. “It’s my fifth show with Dick Wolf — I started on New York Undercover, I did a show he had called Swift Justice, I was on Exiled: A Law & Order Movie and then the [1997] show called Players. So when I got a chance to be on this show, they said, ‘Well, come and see if it fits,’ and obviously it did.”
Law & Order: SVU returns for its 25th season Jan. 18 on NBC.
