Vanilla Ice revealed in a candid interview this week that his mother was married seven times, and confessed he never knew who his father was, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The rapper, 56, — whose legal name is Robert Van Winkle — sat outside his Miami home and opened up to Vlad TV about his mom, Camilla, and what it was like to grow up as one of three children who all had different dads.
The host of the YouTube show, Ukrainian-American journalist Vladislav Lyubovny, known as "DJ Vlad," cut right to the chase as he opened with the question, "Did you ever know your biological father?"
"No," Vanilla Ice replied, noting he was born on Halloween in Dallas, Texas. "My mom never gave me a straight story. We heard stories of who it was, and stuff like that, and who I thought it was, and it came out to uh —" the rapper paused and laughed before saying, "Mom I love you, but I'm gonna tell your dirt."
He called Camilla "the greatest mom in the world," adding, "she's so sweet," before describing how he learned about the seven marriages, recalling how his mom said, "Honey, I got around."
Vanilla Ice, who has three daughters with two women, also said he was surprised to learn that his mom recently got eloped and took on a new last name, Bryant. The rapper, along with his sister and brother, "have never met Bryant."
"Who is this guy?" he wondered.
"She says, 'Honey, look at it like this. I'm looking for love in the wrong places. But I am happy. I'm the happiest person on the planet,'" he continued. "She goes, 'Look at it like this, I got seven honeymoons, seven wedding dresses, seven marriages. Most girls, they lucky if they get one."
"She loves it. She goes, 'It didn't work out. That's what it is.'"
Lyubovny asked the rapper to clarify the source of his last name, and Vanilla revealed that his pregnant mother was with a man who had the last name Van Winkle, but that the man left when he learned he was not actually the father. That man "beat my mom up pretty bad," Vanilla Ice claimed, and said she "had to run away from that guy."
"So I don't know who the hell I am," the rapper said, adding with a roar of laughter, "Who's my dad?"
He went on to explain that his sister's dad, Byron, stepped into the role and "was the guy who took me to the motocross races and gave me a lot of knowledge."
"I didn't ever miss having a fdad or anything, and my mom is super mom, so she played both parts," he continued, "Some people might miss their dad or miss something about it," but he said he "never had any thought at all about it," because "there's nothing there to miss if there's nothing there to begin with."
"So Vanilla Ice's real dad may not even know that his son is Vanilla Ice?" the interviewer asked, to which his guest replied, "Yeah. Exactly true."