On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Ice T is known as Sergeant Odafin “Fin” Tutuola. But to his wife, Coco Austin, the legendary rapper and actor goes by a much saucier nickname.
Ice T and Austin have been married since 2002, tying the knot in Las Vegas two months after they first met. Since they became husband and wife, the couple welcomed their daughter, Chanel Nicole, in 2015 and clearly enjoying spending every moment they can with each other. Whether Austin is guest-starring on Law & Order: SVU alongside her hubby or they’re wearing matching sweaters, they have the sweetest relationship. And when it comes to their nicknames, they’ve chosen some great ones for each other.
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Ice T’s wife Coco Austin has a spicy nickname for the Law & Order: SVU star
During a 2023 appearance on TODAY, Ice T revealed that he calls of his wife of over two decades a very cutesy nickname, while she has a slightly more risqué name for the SVU star.
“We all know you as Ice T and your wife as Coco, but what are the nicknames y’all call each other?” Jenna Bush Hager asked.
“I think I got the basic one … Boo Boo. And what does she call me? Oh, she calls me Big Daddy,” Ice T revealed before cheekily adding with a smirk, “And I’m not that tall.”
“Wow! Zinger!” Bush Hager said, slapping her knee. “I love it!”
“Yes, sir!” Willie Geist exclaimed.
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Ice T “struggled to remain calm” when he first met his wife Coco
The story of how Ice T and Austin first met dates back to 2001 when they were both on a music video set. And the first thing the SVU star noticed about his future wife wasn’t her eyes or her bright blonde hair — it was her teeth.
“I turned around, and the first thing I saw was her teeth,” Ice T recalled during a 2017 interview with Mario Lopez. “Now, I’m keeping it 100, I looked at her teeth.”
“In the words of Iceberg Slim, I struggled to remain calm,” he added. “So I kept it cool. I said, ‘Would you ever consider dating a gangster rapper?’ Now, the reason I said that, Mario, was because I was wearing a red snakeskin suit. This was a music video, I couldn’t say UPS man.”
“I didn’t know what a gangster rapper was,” Austin chimed in. “And I go, ‘Well, if he’s nice.'”
“And I said, ‘Well, baby, if you take the ‘N’ off ‘Nice,’ you get ‘Ice,'” Ice T added.
As Austin happily confirmed, “It worked!”
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Now with over 20 years of marriage in the books, Ice T says they’ve been together for so long because they know each other so well. During a 2024 visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Ice T explained that Austin does all of the holiday and party planning in their family, and knows exactly what to not include him in.
“If it wasn’t for her, there would be no holidays, as far as Ice T is concerned,” he told Jimmy Fallon, going on to share a story about his daughter Chanel’s birthday party.
“They went on this train ride called the Polar Express, to God knows where in the mountains and all that. I don’t do that. One of the reasons we’ve been able to be married so long is, Coco already knows the things I won’t do,” Ice T continued. “She’s like, ‘We’re gonna do this. You don’t want to do it, but we’re going to do this.’ And we don’t argue about it! We just let it ride like that.”
