by Gina Scarpa

This weekend, Ice-T and Coco return to E! for a second season of Ice Loves Coco. The long time couple compares themselves to a modern day Lucy and Ricky Ricardo of the classic television show I Love Lucy. Today, we spoke to Ice-T and Coco in an exclusive interview about what made them decide to do a reality show, how they balance one another out, and what we can expect in the upcoming season.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What made the two of you decide initially to open your home and your lives to cameras for Ice Loves Coco?
A. Coco: We've been turning it down for 8 years and it just got to the point where I had a conversation with Ice. They've been trying to get with me for several years, ever since Hip Hop Wives came on, they were saying, "We'll give you any kind of show." And I said, "If we can think of one..." So anyway, I had a conversation with Ice and said, "The world knows you and knows your personality and you've been around for 25-30 years. They really don't know me and I think this would help me in the long run." I'm this model but I don't talk. They don't see my personality. We finally said yes. We wanted a show that we'd feel comfortable with.
A. Ice-T: We kind of made it clear to them that we're not doing it for the money. We're doing it for fun, we did it for Coco, but we're not really going to do anything different. What happened was I told them, "Here's the deal. Shoot a pilot and if you get what you need, maybe we'll do it. If you don't, we're not going to add anything. We don't really care." I think when you go into reality not wanting to do it, you're going to get more of yourself. If you're doing it to be on reality tv, good luck. They said, "You know you have a comedy here. This is I Love Lucy," and we have Ice Loves Coco. We shot 8 episodes, no problem, no fights. It's a positive reality show and it works.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You have such a great relationship but you're also very different people. Do you think that you help balance each other out?
A. Ice-T: Absolutely! Coco is like the corner person in the fight. I go in and she tends to my wounds. She's mellowed me out a lot. I think Ice kinda made Coco a little more shrewd. Coco kinda likes everybody. She's in business now and I give her a few pointers and save her some headaches. She listens.
A. Coco: He does calm me down a bit! I'm still this little girl that likes to have fun but I would say I just bring peace to Ice's life. We know what he wants and he's gonna get it. He has such a crazy, crazy life between Law & Order and all the music he does and the schools that he talks to. When we come home, I try to make it easy as possible. I make him food, give him a massage, and let him play Xbox.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: In season 1, you renewed your vows on the show. Can you tell us about that special moment?
A. Ice-T: When you do a reality show, they'll say, "Okay we're gonna film you for the next 2 months. What do you have coming up?" They take what you have planned and put that into the schedule. That was just one of the things that we said we always wanted to do. Ice Loves Coco kind of put jets on that. When we shot it, nobody was really prepared for what was gonna happen, like when I started crying. We couldn't have planned that. Once the party started, it was a party and they were floating around but those were our real friends and our emotions were real. If you watch our show, it's not about being over the top and the most fabulous. We're not broke but we don't have to be so over the top. That's showing off. We wanted a nice, private event with our friends. We always wanted Arch Bishop Magic wand do the vows.
A. Coco: We definitely wanted to do it at some point in time. When we first got married, we eloped in Vegas - no family or friends around, it was jut us two. We said we would do a reception one day. He said, "We'll probably do it in 5 years," and like a normal man, it took 10. We finally had the party and it was great because we kind of relived the moment that we had when we got married in Caesar's. It was cool because everybody got to witness it.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What kinds of things are we going to see in season 2 of Ice Loves Coco?
A. Coco: Well we definitely travel to a lot of different places - Hawaii, Florida, Utah, Arizona. We're everywhere and you're gonna see a lot with Spartacus. He's a breakout star, believe me! I'm a stage mom here! I might make an appearance on Law & Order again. Not might, I will. There's Soulgee, another breakout character. I teach him how to drive for the first time. Little scenarios like that then you'll see me, my high blood pressure, and how I deal with that. And my family too. It's a lot of high energy compacted into this little season.
A. Ice-T: We have a lot of behind the seasons of Law & Order too and on a day-to-day basis, that's where I am most of the time. If I'm Ricky, this is the Copacabana and this is where I work. Our life is really based at the Law & Order set. Coco has her own offices but that's really where we are. We use that a lot more this season. Because E! is on Comcast, and Comcast is NBC, the doors were wide open. You get to see Belzer, Kelly, Dan, you get to see a lot of them.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What else do the two of you have going on?
A. Ice-T: Oh wow! Well Coco's clothing line is doing great that we launched last season, liciousclothing.com.
A. Coco: Oh, I had a girl come up to me saying, "I just wanna let you know your pants are wonderful because I got every single color and my boyfriend goes around saying how good my butt looks. I just wanna thank you!" I love those comments that I can put onto my website. Also, I have my book out called "Angel", a fictional book that's really suspenseful and sexy. You can get that Amazon.
A. Ice-T: My movie just got picked up at Sundance, The Art of Wrath. On the show, we'll go to Sundance. You'll see that. Other than that, for the fans, just follow us on Twitter @Cocosworld and @Finallevel.

Ice Loves Coco returns Sunday, February 19th, at 10:30/9:30c on E!

(Image courtesy of E!)

Follow Gina @ginascarpa and "Like" her on Facebook!