Ice Cube Reveals Secret to His 32-Year Marriage with Wife Kimberly Woodruff: 'You've Got to Want It'
Ice Cube and Kimberly Woodruff, who share four kids, mark their 32nd wedding anniversary on Nov. 28
Ice Cube and Kimberly Woodruff, who share four kids, mark their 32nd wedding anniversary on Nov. 28:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/ice-cube-kimberley-woodruff-7-37d32b065d534e7e94a60b265f4ff4ff.jpg "Ice Cube and wife Kimberly Woodruff attend the 7th annual Governors Awards at The Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center on November 14, 2015")
After 32 years of marriage, Ice Cube knows a thing or two about making love last.
The rapper-actor, 55, married wife Kimberly Woodruff in 1992, and in a recent episode of Cam Newton’s podcast Funky Friday he revealed the secret to wedded bliss.
“We want to be [married]. You’ve got to want it,” he explained. “I don’t want nobody to have my woman. She’s mine. I’m hers.”
Ice Cube and Woodruff — for whom Thanksgiving 2024 marks their 32nd anniversary — are parents to four children: sons O’Shea Jr., 33, Darrell, 31, and Shareef, 24, and daughter Kareema, 30.
In response to the Friday star’s answer, Newton said marriage is “all about how you are locked in with your partner.”
“You don’t stay with a person for as long as you’ve been with your person and can honestly say, ‘Man, every single day I wake up and it’s just doves flying,’ ” Newton said.
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Ice Cube then pointed out that such a perspective isn’t realistic, and that he and Woodruff have made their marriage work because they know not every day will be perfect.
“Who in your life is it like that with? You don’t like your mama every day. Some days she gets on your nerves. Some day your brother,” he said. “Every day ain’t gonna be roses. You can’t expect that from your spouse. It’s all about are y’all a family or not? You gotta be willing to give, and there’s a person that you want to give to, that time, effort and love.”
In honor of his and Woodruff’s anniversary last November, the N.W.A. rapper celebrated the milestone by sharing throwback photos from their wedding and other moments over the years on Instagram.
“31 years of marriage. 34 years of love. Happy Anniversary,” he captioned the post.
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Ice Cube previously revealed his first impressions of Woodruff in a 2021 interview on In Depth with Graham Bensinger.
“When I saw her, something automatically went through my head and said, ‘Either that could be your woman or that should be your woman.’ We end up in the same store and, man, she didn’t want me. She turned me down! She was with somebody else,” he said.
“I think my man T-Bone did a lot of the talking. But I just knew that this wasn’t gonna happen. So I ended up seeing her I think five, six months later and we remembered each other and we ain’t been apart since.”
