Vanilla Ice is way past his rapping heyday, but the one-time popular rapper still finds himself having to deny rumors that allegedly happened many moons ago. The story is that Death Row Records founder Suge Knight hung him over a balcony in order to get him to agree to hand over the copyright to his hit song, "Ice Ice Baby," a rumor Ice says is false.

“That’s a lie,” Ice, who stars in his own reality TV show, The Vanilla Ice Project, these days told Interview Magazine. “I read the story, and I heard it, and I had to defend it nine million times, but he never took me to the balcony, threatened to hang me over, or anything.”

“From the money that Suge got from [the album] To the Extreme from me, he started Dr. Dre,” Ice continued. “The Chronic record came from the funding from my record; Tupac came from the funding of my record; Snoop Dogg came from the funding from my record.”

For the most part, Ice, who says he was indeed taken to a balcony to talk, believes Suge was a gentleman when it came to cutting a deal with him. “Rap music is gangster, it’s been gangster from the beginning,” he said. “Yes, Suge Knight took some money from me, and he did take me to the balcony, explained it to me. He was actually nice to me … … [people think] I’m so bitter about it—I never went to the police, I never did anything like that. I knew better … [But] it’s funny how this story has evolved and been polished up and changed around to make him a monster and everything— hell, I’m still friends with Suge Knight … I look at it like I’ve invested in some of the greatest hip-hop music in the world.”—Gina Montana

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