Ice-T recalls moment he first set eyes on Coco

 Asked what first attracted Ice-T to his wife Coco - and the response is, initially at least, a little surprising.

'It was her teeth, they were the first things I saw,' he explains in an exclusive interview.

But the plot thickens, so to speak...

'...and then I saw her boobs. And then,' he laughs, 'when she turned around, that big butt,' the rapper-turned-actor elaborated. 

'There was an instant physical attraction, but I was at a point in my life where I was ready to slow down.

'I wanted a partner. I wasn't in a position to be dating a beautiful psychopath.'

That was over a decade ago at a video shoot for one of Ice-T's friends and he admits that once he'd got his head around glamour model Coco's eye-popping statistics, 'we started to talk and I found out she was just a really sweet girl. 

'I applied the stereotype that everyone does to Coco – that she just wanted to party and have a good time. But she was just an honest and giving woman. She's the nicest person, man or woman, I've ever met.'

Hearing the controversial rapper and actor eulogising his wife in such unapologetic fashion may come as a surprise to some, but there's little about the couple that doesn't surprise in some way. 

Ice-T and Nicole 'Coco' Austin were married within two months of meeting, celebrated ten years of marriage last year and despite the 21-year age difference (he's 54 to her 33) continue to confound both critics and fans alike with their seemingly blissful union. 

'People had certain preconceptions of us,' says Ice-T.  'They thought I'd be burying bodies in the back garden and Coco would be off stripping at birthday parties. But we're a normal couple with a normal relationship and people are starting to see that.'

That they're able to see it is thanks to the couple's reality show, Ice Loves Coco, which has proved a surprise hit on both sides of the Atlantic. 

It follows them going about their daily business – Ice-T starring in the long-running TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Coco helping to run his business interests as well as her own, which include modelling as well as promoting her clothing line Licious.