Coco Austin, the bodacious wife of rapper/actor?Ice-T and star of E!’s “Ice Loves Coco,”?has earned rave reviews for her debut performance in Peep Show, the Las?Vegas burlesque?in which she?replaced?the knocked-up Holly Madison, former number one girl of Playboy’s Hugh Hefner. And to answer your question, yes, Coco is topless in the show. Big time topless.
The show, which runs at?Planet Hollywood, is billed as “a timid girl[‘s] … transformation into a confident, sensual woman.” To be clear, it’s not a high-brow show, it’s not theater in the snotty sense?… it’s Vegas for fuck’s sake … but there’s singing and dancing and nursery rhymes and lots and lots?of bare boobs. And Coco’s okay with that.
Never a shrinking violet,?Coco has no?problem showing off her?bod. As many of us know,?she has a standing tradition on Twitter of?posting?photos of herself for what she calls Titty Tuesdays and Bum Thursdays. In an interview, Coco said that being practically naked on stage in front of a huge audience is ?an exhilarating feeling.?
She considers herself an entertainer and Coco has been dancing since childhood. Evidently one of the?main changes to the show from when Holly was the star, is that Coco does much more?dancing. In an interview with Vegas.com, Coco claims that she never previously gave serious thought to being?a showgirl because her 39DD-23-40 physique doesn’t fit the standard mold.
?I'm short, and I'm kind of stocky. I would think, that will never happen. I always discussed it in dance class when I was nine years old. You know dancers, when you're that age, you're always trying to get to Vegas, that's the level you want to get to, but even though I talked about it I never thought I was really going to be there someday.?
As much as I love Coco,?it’s somewhat troubling to imagine a group of 9-year olds dreaming of being Vegas showgirls, like it’s the pinnacle of a dancer’s career. Not to?dance on Broadway, but on a Vegas stage. And hopefully Coco realizes that it’s not her dancing that got her there.
I will say that if you haven’t had the joy of watching Ice Loves Coco, you really ought to. As a couple, Ice and Coco are surprisingly charming and devoted (hence the explosion of concern when they had their Twitter feud a few weeks ago), and Coco is actually very likeable in her dopey, super-sexed up way. In an interview with Robin Leach, Coco said:
“[Peep Show] is right up my alley because I always consider myself in ?la-la? world. I am never on Earth. I am never walking around on Earth; I am walking around in Coco?s world. I feel like ?Peepshow? is la-la world.”
Following her first preview show in early December, Coco summed up her expectations for the show far more eloquently than anyone else could.
“I want people to say when they come see the show, ?This is the best Coco Bo Peep they've ever seen. It's my new nickname. No longer Coco, just Coco Peep.”
If you have the good fortune to see Coco in Peep Show, trust me, you will not be disappointed. It is nothing short of a new height in?tawdry, Vegas-style entertainment, and that chick is seriously a force of nature.