- To The Extreme became the fastest selling hip hop album of all-time (and it still is)
- Billboard #1
- 7 million copies sold
- Appeared in a roll and performed a remix to his hit ‘Ice Ice Baby’ in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze.
- Dated Madonna for 9 months.
DIY Network: The Vanilla Ice Project first aired October 14th premiere. The show got rave reviews, so the next batch of episodes are set to begin January 19th. A little known fact about Van Winkle prior to the show, is that he has over 15 years home improvement experience. The Vanilla Ice Project features Van Winkle and his crew of contractors get down and dirty renovating a new home each week. Vanilla Ice calls the shots, of this DIY Network hit show room by room -- and it even promises a little bit of the attitude and flair that Robert Van Winkle is known for.
Van Winkle says that getting into real estate was ‘by accident.’ He was young and had about $20 million dollars, and started buying homes: one in LA, NY, Utah and finally Star island in Miami. But he turned youthful exuberance and money into a possible career in 1998 when he got married and had two kids according a DIY.life interview:
“Yes, I've been doing this for more than 10 years. Not just flipping homes, but remodeling them. And when the market was really good, up until 2005, I was also buying land and building homes. It would take me more than a year to get a return on the money [for each home].”
Rob Van Winkle. From the Ice Ice Baby rapper, to heady real estate investor and flipper. I guess anything is possible huh?