Vanilla Ice Is Sorry

Vanilla Ice has unburdened himself and finally come clean. He's sorry about "Ice Ice Baby" and all it wrought.

The man born Robert Matthew Van Winkle in Dallas, Texas on Halloween 1967 started as a breakdancer and moved into rapping. He struck it big in 1990 with the chart-topping "Ice Ice Baby," which sampled Queen and David Bowie's 1981 hit "Under Pressure" without permission, acknowledgment or royalties. The copyright holders settled out of court for an undisclosed sum instead of suing Ice.

Ice's musical thievery continued when Wild Cherry singer/guitarist Rob Parissi was awarded $500,000 damages for Ice's uncredited cover of the band's "Play That Funky Music."

Ice By Ice: The Vanilla Ice Story In His Own Words contained a lot of false information and, although Van Winkle was credited as the author, he later said he had nothing to do with the book.

Cool As Ice, a loose adaptation of the James Dean vehicle Rebel Without A Cause, hit movie screens for less than a month that same year. It grossed just over a million bucks in the U.S. and established that Ice was even a worse actor than rapper. But that didn't stop Madonna from featuring him in her Sex photo book in 1992.

After Ice's career flamed out and he apparently developed a drug problem, he attempted suicide twice in 1994. He obviously wasn't very good at that, either.

Ice has since released a handful of albums that were met with collective yawns by those who noticed. He also appeared in a number of reality television shows, including Celebrity Boxing (where he lost to Diff'rent Strokes actor Todd Bridges), The Surreal Life, The Farm and Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge.

Ice was arrested in 2001 for assaulting his wife and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. He was arrested again last year for battery after allegedly kicking and hitting her, but charges were dropped a few weeks later.

Ice's pet wallaroo and goat escaped from his Port St. Lucie, Fla. house in 2004 and wandered the streets for more than a week before they were caught and returned to him. He was fined $220 for having expired pet tags and an undisclosed amount for allowing the animals to escape.

Ice and MC Hammer took the stage together in the hip-hop hotbed of Salt Lake City, Utah on Feb. 27. Ice called it "the most MAGICAL EVENT EVER!" in his blog and says the two men are now talking about touring the world together.

"I think the world need's it," he wrote. "There has been nothing hit on the impact level of what we did 18 years ago."

Feel the magic of Ice and Hammer doing "U Can't Touch This":

Vanilla Ice obviously has a lot to apologize for (excluding his role in The Fat Boys' return), so we'll let him:

Here's how this whole mess got started: