ICED OUT
Grammy-winning rapper Ice-T was revealed to be the Disco Ball on the season premiere of The Masked Dancer Sunday night.
The 62-year-old was the first contestant to be eliminated on Fox’s new The Masked Singer spinoff series.
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Five masked contestants performed during the show’s series premiere – Hammerhead, Tulip, Cricket, Disco Ball, and Exotic Bird.
While four of them made it to the end of the episode still safely concealed, Disco Ball was booted and unmasked.
After seeing the clue package for the costumed dancer and watching him perform, none of the panelists – Ken Jeong, Paula Abdul, Brian Austin Green, and Ashley Tisdale – guessed correctly on who the celebrity was inside the sparkly head.
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Once host Craig Robinson chanted “Take it off!” and the panelists joined in, the pink suit-wearing Ice-T took his helmet off, with some help from someone on stage, and revealed his identity to everyone.
Craig called Grammy-winning rapper the “GOAT,” Ken said he’s a “legend,” and Paula told him he’s “so cool.”
The Law & Order: SVU star danced to Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, and after all the twirling and hip-shaking moves on stage, panelist Ken told him he’s got a “great disco tush.”
Turns out, some of those moves Ice-T busted were improvized because he didn’t want to be too bogged down with choreography when his main focus was just trying to not trip while wearing the heavy mask.
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He told EW: “You're just concerned with not falling. Like at that point, I threw all the choreography out the window. I said I just don't want to bust my a** on national television like that.
“That would be the nightmare, you know? So I said, I'm just gonna try to keep my balance in this outfit. The head is heavy, it's top heavy.
“So I just went out there and kind of winged it, threw a little flavor in there, because to me, it's not even so much a dancing show as a guessing show.”
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The 62-year-old entertainer also reminded the outlet that he used to be a b-boy and breakdanced when he was younger, though those days are long behind him.
“I used to be in the breakdance movies [Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo],” he said.
Ice-T added: “I used to dance. Those are days long gone, you know, my body don't move like it used to.”
Disco Ball performs to 'Uptown Funk' By Bruno Mars on The Masked Dancer
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He also shared that one of the main reasons he agreed to be on the dance competition series was because of his and his wife Coco Austin' 5-year-old daughter, Chanel.
The actor said she loves to watch The Masked Singer but never knows who the celebrities are once they're revealed, and he thought it would be really fun for her to see her dad revealed on the spinoff.
The rapper was the first, but a new celebrity contestant will be unmasked and their identity revealed when The Masked Dancer returns with episode 2 on Fox on Wednesday, January 6 at 8 p.m.