Vanilla turns ice red after skating mishap

Vanilla Ice hit his head and sprayed the rink with blood during rehearsals for Dancing On Ice this week. The 43-year-old rapper was unconscious for three minutes and gashed his head open after slipping on the ice while practising his routine with partner Katie Stainsby for Saturday night's show. He was rushed to hospital by ambulance for stitches and concerned medics recommended that he stay overnight for observation because of severe concussion. But the rapper discharged himself just a few hours later, at 6.30pm on Wednesday night, so he could attend the National Television Awards. Vanilla hid his head injury under a cap and told The Sun: "Katie scraped me off the ice - I had no idea what happened at first. I was out for a few minutes. There was blood everywhere." The Texan star injured himself while rehearsing a dramatic lift for this weekend's show, where, in a cruel twist, the celebrities must vote off a couple from the bottom two. But Vanilla is determined not to held back by the injury. He told Daybreak on ITV1: "I'm going to be all right, I race dirt bikes, this is something that happens. You know, you crash, you get up, you dust your shoulder off and you get back out there." "This fall is not going to set me back at all."

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.