2ND SEASON OF 'ICE LOVES COCO' STARTS FEB. 19TH

Musician-actor Ice T and his wife, Coco, know well what folks whispered about them early on in their relationship — and a lot of it wasn’t nice.

“It’s funny,” Coco says, “when I first got into his life, the first six months, I would hear all the comments, ‘Who’s that bimbo chick on his arm?’ ”

“With the big huge t—ies,” Ice says, laughing.

Indeed, the model, 32, and the actor, 53, survived those early days. Now, with the launch of the second season of their E! reality series “Ice Loves Coco,” Feb. 19 at 10:30 p.m., they’re letting viewers see another little slice of their home life.

“Ice and I are very like, well, we’re homebodies,” says Coco, best known for her barely-there outfits and killer curves.

They agreed to do the first season of the show to help expose Coco [known as Coco Austin\] to a wider audience, and because the series wasn’t intrusive or abusive.

The show follows them on meetings, at home, and when they’re out doing stuff together.

“We don’t need the show,” says Ice (birth name Tracy Marrow), who stars on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” “We’re cool, we’re all right. It was something that was fun, and the end result, it turned out a plus. It helped Coco tremendously.”

Coco says her fan base, always strong with men who appreciated her modeling work, has grown to include young girls.

“I now have 6-year-olds, 9-year-olds, they love the girly girl,” she says. “Girls always want that little idol, whether it’s Marilyn Monroe, Madonna or Lady Gaga. The best compliments are when the guys say I watched this with my girl.”

The other thing that helps, he says, is that the cameras are not there every day, so they do have time to breathe and live an off-camera life in peace.

“I’ve always said Ice has been in the public eye for 25 or 30 years. They pretty much know Ice, and every aspect of his life from music to acting,” Coco says. “You really don’t know who I am. I don’t even talk in interviews. They don’t see my compassionate family side. It also showed people I work for Ice, that I actually do something for Ice.”

In the season opener, though, Coco is the focus. A crew captured her disclosure to “SVU” star Kelli Giddish that she wasn’t feeling well. Giddish suggests she see a doctor.

Coco learns she has high blood pressure. Initially, she wasn’t going to let cameras tag along, but then she realized letting viewers see dealing with high blood pressure could be “a good message to get out there.”

“Coco doesn’t look sick,” says Ice. “We had a discussion. The show respects us. We’re not on a show where they’re like, ‘We’re going to show it regardless. That’s not what our s— is.”

That respect, of course, is one reason the couple chose to do this show, in this way.

“A lot of shows are train-wreck shows,” Ice says. “It’s in the editing. They make it look f—ed up.”

Last season the producers sent the couple each show before it aired. They didn’t ask for a single change.

“E! isn’t as much about the dumb s—,” Ice says, “and we weren’t doing the dumb s—. We don’t need to do it. Some reality people don’t have the other check. When a producer says be stupid, they do it.”

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