Ice T Has a Very Divisive Opinion About Bagels: "Why Would I Eat..."
"People eat this whole thing?” the Law & Order: SVU star said after trying a bagel for the first time.
After playing Sgt. Odafin "Fin" Tutuola for literal decades on NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, many might assume that Ice T would perhaps have a go-to bagel order at his favorite NYC deli. Or maybe that he’d nosh on one in between scenes with Olivia Benson. But as it turns out, the actor and rapper hadn’t even tried a bagel until he was in his 60s — and he’s not the biggest fan of the beloved carb.
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Ice T faked eating a bagel on Law & Order: SVU
Back in November 2018, Ice T revealed on Twitter that he’d never eaten a bagel and, boy oh boy, did it cause a hilarious uproar. Even Philadelphia Cream Cheese chimed in, replying to his tweet that the brand was “trying to remain calm.” He also revealed he’d never had a cup of coffee, which only amplified the whole situation. After all, as a 2024 survey found, the average New Yorker eats over 100 bagels a year while 80% of participants nationwide said they eat at least one bagel every month.
A few weeks later, Ice T appeared on The Tonight Show and broke down the whole fiasco to Jimmy Fallon. “What happened was, on the show, they wanted me to eat a bagel. I said, ‘I don’t eat bagels,’ but it was in the script so, you know, I just did it. But I acted like I ate it, I didn’t eat it,” he explained.
In fact, Vulture even did an in-depth investigation into the scene and concluded that Ice T simply held it in his hand the whole time after offering Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) half of his cinnamon raisin bagel.
He went on to explain that a fan on Twitter had asked him why his character ate a cinnamon raisin bagel on SVU, and when he eventually revealed that he’d never eaten a bagel himself… Well, as Ice T put it, “everybody lost their goddamn minds.”
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Surprised as the rest of the internet by Ice T’s revelation, Fallon asked how that could be possible. “Look I’m from South Central,” Ice T replied to Fallon. “Could you imagine Snoop singing, ‘Rolling down the street, smokin' indo and eating some lox and bagels.’ It don’t work.”
Ice T eventually did eat a bagel and was not impressed
After the internet lost its collective mind, Ice T was approached by Coffee Meets Bagel, a dating website, to appear in an ad and try a bagel for the very first time.
“It’s not bad, it has a different consistency than a doughnut, but it’s not bad,” he said in the ad after taking a bite of a plain bagel with cream cheese. “That one bite, I feel like I just ate a loaf of bread. People eat this whole thing?”
As he tried a bagel with lox, Ice T said through labored chews, “You gotta have some strong jaws, the teeth better be in check.”
While Ice T can now say that he’s tried a bagel, it doesn’t sound like he’ll eat another one any time soon. “Why would I eat an unsweetened doughnut?” he told Fallon in 2018 of his bagel experience. “I’m OK with it, coffee’s cool, I’m good. I like jelly doughnuts. Let’s keep it moving.”
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Ice T’s SVU co-star and longtime friend Mariska Hargitay had the opposite reaction of the internet. “I couldn’t believe that anybody cared,” she told Fallon. “I didn’t understand why people cared if Ice had a bagel or not.”
“Listen,” Ice T added, “Eat what you wanna eat!”
So what will Ice T snack on “all day” on the set of SVU? A big bowl of Cheerios.
