Vanilla Ice reveals he hung out with ‘Drug Lord’ Pablo Escobar ‘many times’ as they bonded over love of boats and cars, but had no idea he was the ruthless cartel leader because he ‘didn’t have Google’

Vanilla Ice has revealed he hung out with Pablo Escobar ‘many times’ as they bonded over their love of boats and cars.

In an animated chat with VladTV, the Texas-born 1990s rap star who is now a successful real estate investor and developer said they have struck up an unlikely friendship.

“Pablo was a wonderful person personally – this sounds ridiculous,” he recalled fondly. “First of all, I didn’t have Google. You don’t go up to people and say, “What do you do for a living?” I have no idea.’

Ice, real name Robert Van Winkle, revealed that the Colombian drug lord and the ‘Cocaine Cowboys’ came to his home on Star Island near Miami Beach, believed to be during the height of his hip-hop fame.

He said helicopters would land on the island all the time, where he kept food in the refrigerators especially for them and had his maids clean up after them.

Pablo Escobar and his wife Maria Victoria in 1983 in Colombia

“They took me in helicopters to these amazing events and race boats and looked at all the cool things they were making,” he said.

“That’s the kind of thing we did. We went out and raced boats. We were always on boats. So there was always a bunch of bikinis floating around.”

Ice, 56, said he once bragged that his beefed-up Porsche was faster than Escobar’s prized Ferrari Testarossa, so soon after they lined up the cars side by side to reach an agreement.

“I smoked it,” he recalled.

Ice hosted a reality TV show, The Vanilla Ice Project, between 2010 and 2019, in which he renovated properties.

Vanilla Ice performing at ‘I Love the 90s’ Postgame Concert hosted by Philadelphia Phillies and presented by Jim Beam ‘I Love the 90s’ Postgame Concert hosted by Philadelphia Phillies, Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA – August 19, 2022

Ice, 56, said he once bragged that his beefed-up Porsche was faster than Escobar’s prized Ferrari Testarossa, so soon after they lined up the cars side by side to settle it (File Photo)

He also produced a seven-part podcast, The Disappearance of Shergar the Super Horse, for the BBC about the 1981 Derby winner.

Robert Van Winkle wrote Ice, Ice Baby when he was 16, using a sample from Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure.

The song made him a millionaire before he turned 21 and later shifted more than 40 million units.

To The Extreme’s 1990 album, featuring that song, stayed at the top of the Billboard charts in America for sixteen weeks and sold over 13 million copies.

He became incredibly famous, but it was difficult to shake his image as a novelty in music. The star also dated Madonna for eight months.

Escobar entered the cocaine trade in the early 1970s and teamed up with other criminals to form the Medellin Cartel.

By the mid-1980s he had an estimated fortune of $30 billion and cash was so widespread that Escobar bought a Learjet for the sole purpose of making his money fly.

Pablo Escobar records a mugshot taken by the Colombian Regional Audit Office in Medellin in 1976

Colombian soldiers guard the entrance to Pablo Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles ranch in 1989

A Colombian soldier stands guard by the pool at Pablo Escobar’s Hacienda Napoles ranch in 1989

Hippos float in the lagoon of Hacienda Napoles Park, once the private estate of drug lord Pablo Escobar who decades ago imported three female hippos and one male in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia, on February 4, 2021

More than 15 tons of cocaine were reportedly smuggled every day, earning the cartel as much as $420 million a week.

For much of his time at the top of the narco heap, Escobar earned popularity by sponsoring charities and football clubs, sharing some of his wealth with local communities and being portrayed as something of a Robin Hood figure.

But Escobar’s henchmen’s terror campaigns resulted in the murder of thousands of people, and slowly but surely began to turn the public against him, as US law enforcement agencies worked with Colombian police to tear down his empire.

Colombian police finally caught up with Escobar on December 2, 1993, in a middle-class neighborhood in Medellin.

A gunfight ensued and as Escobar tried to escape across a series of rooftops, he and his bodyguard were shot and killed.