IceT reflects on the fentanyl deaths of his friends Coolio and Michael K. Williams: 'This s‑‑‑ is real' Ryan ColemanAugust 22, 2025 at 7:30 PM Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Rodrigo Varela/Getty; Steven Lawton/FilmMagic IceT, Michael K. Williams, and Coolio IceT was devastated when his friend Michael K.
- - Ice-T reflects on the fentanyl deaths of his friends Coolio and Michael K. Williams: 'This s‑‑‑ is real'
Ryan ColemanAugust 22, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Rodrigo Varela/Getty; Steven Lawton/FilmMagic
Ice-T, Michael K. Williams, and Coolio
Ice-T was devastated when his friend Michael K. Williams died of an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2021. And when his other friend and close collaborator Coolio died the very next year in the very same way, something major shifted in him.
"I don't do drugs, but I never expected it," the legendary rapper and longtime Law & Order: SVU star tells Entertainment Weekly. "When it hit Coolio and it hit Mike, that was the nail in the coffin. That's when you go, 'Yo, this s‑‑‑ is real.' You know what I'm saying? It's real."
Now Ice-T is hosting the A&E documentary special Fame and Fentanyl, which explores the shocking premature deaths of stars like Williams, Coolio, Prince, Angus Cloud, and Tom Petty, and the unsettling fact that the potent opioid showed up in all their postmortem toxicology reports.
Ice-T says he "knew about fentanyl a long time ago," having heard talk of a new opioid being cut into substances like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines to "boost the power of the drug."
A+E
Ice-T hosts 'Fame and Fentanyl'
But he also admits he "didn't know that it could kill people so easily," adding, "They have people out here, chemists that are putting this s‑‑‑ into different drugs, and people have started dying. Now the word on the street is like, 'Yo, this s‑‑‑ will kill you.'"
In addition to narrating Fame and Fentanyl and returning for SVU's upcoming 27th season, Ice-T will be in attendance at CrimeCon 2025, which kicks off Sept. 5 in Denver. He will serve as host of the CrimeCon Clue Awards and sit down with Dateline's Chris Hansen for a career retrospective, in which he'll touch on his collaborations with figures like Coolio.
In one of Coolio's final interviews, the "Gangsta's Paradise" rapper poignantly detailed his close relationship with Ice-T, calling him "my biggest mentor" as he was rising through the ranks of West Coast rap in the late 1980s and early '90s. "Ice-T taught me how to be an artist," he said. "I used to hang onto his every word."
Reflecting on the death of the rapper born Artis Leon Ivey Jr., Ice-T said he was aware his friend used drugs but stressed it was recreational. "Coolio was healthy. I know he didn't want to die," he says. "He spoke freely about it, but that's the thing. If you're doing drugs recreationally, you're not trying to take your own life. Recreation is a game, but this is no longer a game."
As for Williams, Ice-T describes the distinguished star of The Wire as "a friend of mine. We had never worked together, but we had planned to work together. I hoped to work with him. When people die of fentanyl, it's like they got hit by a car, like they got shot. This is a person who's healthy and tomorrow they're outta there."
The iconic musician Prince became one of the first high-profile casualties of fentanyl in 2016, when he died from an accidental overdose of the potent drug.
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Ice-T and Coolio in the music video for Tupac's 'Temptations'
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Ice-T says he grew up idolizing Prince, but it still took several years and even more fentanyl-related deaths close to him to wake him up to the drug's true danger. "People think you have to be a drug addict to OD, that you have to do a lot," he says. "No. With this, it's one time and boom, it's a wrap. So don't f‑‑‑ with it. Don't play around anymore. There's something on the street that's poison."
He adds, "I probably know more people that have died off of it than anything."
Nicole Rivelli/HBO
Michael K. Williams as Omar Little on 'The Wire'
With the A&E special, Ice-T is hoping to drive home how serious the fentanyl issue is. "When you start losing people, you know, it matters," he says. "But the word's been on the street. Hopefully this doc will really blast it out to more people to understand that this is not a game at all."
Fame and Fentanyl premieres Monday, Aug. 25, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on A&E.
on Entertainment Weekly
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