Vanilla Ice and Pablo Escobar used to hang out in the ’90s

Last Updated on December 29, 2023

If you thought the Vanilla Ice and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pairing was weird, try this one on…Mr. Rob Van Winkle himself revealed that he was buddies with Pablo Escobar during the ‘90s – you know, the Colombian drug lord…Blow, ninja, blow, ninja, blow!

Vanilla Ice recently fessed up that he and Escobar – whose cocaine empire helped him amass around $30 billion – hung out on multiple occasions. But it wasn’t 2-XL or Battletoads that the fellas bonded over, it was speed boats. “[Escobar and his people] would take me in the helicopter, we’d go to these great events and race boats and look at all the cool stuff that they were making. And I never questioned, we didn’t have Google. I don’t know who these people are. I thought they were businessmen. They like to race boats like I did.” (Vanilla Ice, as many know, was once considered one of the world’s best jet ski racers.) But Winkle plays innocent as to his dealings (for lack of a better word) with the king of cocaine, saying he wasn’t aware what Escobar did between 9 and 5. “This sounds ridiculous. First of all, like, 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. Guy’s loaded… And we’d go out and race boats, we were always on boats. There was always a bunch of bikinis floating around everywhere.” Let’s see if that gets into the biopic!

Vanilla Ice also said he made Escobar welcome in his Miami home. “We were all friends…They would land helicopters in my house constantly, on Star Island… Come into my house, I had food just for them in the refrigerators.” While we don’t know exactly what Vanilla Ice kept in his fridge for his guests, we do know Escobar was a lover of food, with his favorite dish being Piranha en Salsa Amazonia. He also “hated American products and processed foods.”

Vanilla Ice and Pablo Escobar are definitely towards the top of unexpected celebrity friendships. What are some other weird pairings? Give us some of your favorites below!