Ice-T looked back on his impulsive New Year’s Eve 2006 wedding to wife Coco Austin in a revealing new interview! “We told everybody we were married, but we weren’t legally married,” he told PEOPLE for an interview published on Sept. 15, noting that people previously thought they were married in 2002. When they went to get a license, the clerk in Vegas thought they were already hitched, adding an element of confusion. Still, she agreed to help out, with a condition.

“She’s like, ‘Y’all getting no license unless you take a picture with me,’ ” he said. “So, I had to take a picture with all the girls there and we came out and there’s a limo outside. They really want to get you married. You know, short and sweet across the street.”

He explained, “But I said, ‘We’re not just doing it in any chapel.’ So, we went back to Caesar’s Palace, where we were staying. It was New Year’s Eve and I said, ‘We got to get married tonight.’”

He recalls almost hitting a brick wall when the iconic hotel’s chapel said they were closed — but a little name dropping fixed the situation immediately.  “He’s like, ‘We’re closed for the night,’” the rapper remembers. “I never say my name but I said, ‘It’s Ice-T.’ He said, ‘Bulls***.’ So, I went down to the elevator to the fifth floor and walked in. The guy was like, ‘No f****** way.’”

It goes without saying that the chapel stayed open for the star-studded nuptials. And when the couple went down in the elevator, with the blonde bombshell dressed up and ready to go, he says some young fans were impressed. “Coco had the bouquet in her hands. The kids were like, ‘Ice-T, yo! Y’all just got married?’”

So, he told the outlet, they had an elevator reception. “So, they threw us a reception in the elevator,” he divulged. “They were partying and blowing horns and s***.”

With the formalities out of the way, the rapper, now 65, says they went out to celebrate the New Year. “We never really told anybody about this because everyone thought we were already married,” he shared. “So, we never did a true celebration.” Still, they wound up renewing their vows in front of the world. “We did it in 10 years on Ice Loves Coco,” he said. “We had a big thing in L.A. and it was better, because we had been married 10 years.”

Ice-T and Coco share daughter Chanel, now 7 years old. For the uninitiated, they’re regularly criticized for their unconventional parenting methods with their little girl, including extended co-sleeping and extended breast feeding.