‘Law & Order: SVU’ Star Ice-T Shares Update on ‘Serious No Masker’ Father-In-Law With COVID-19

Ice-T shared an update on his father-in-law Steve Austin, who is battling the coronavirus. Austin was hospitalized in June and left the hospital in early August. However, Austin returned to the ICU last month and is on “oxygen indefinitely,” the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star tweeted Sunday. When Austin went home in August, Ice-T‘s wife Coco Austin said her father lost 30 pounds while he was in the hospital.

“My father-in-law ‘Coco’s dad’ was a serious ‘No Masker’ COVID hit him. Pneumonia in both lungs.. 40 days in ICU close to death. Now he’s on Oxygen indefinitely. Ohhh he’s a Believer now,” Ice-T tweeted Sunday, adding the hashtag, “COVID is not a game.” Ice-T included the photo of Austin wearing an oxygen mask that he shared in June.

Austin first went to the hospital in late June. “Coco’s father checked into the hospital yesterday. Covid in AZ,” Ice-T simply wrote at the time. In July, the rapper told Jimmy Fallon Austin is a “Harley Davidson-riding, no-masking type of dude” and the coronavirus “put him on his back.” He said pneumonia spread to both of Austin’s lungs, which are damaged indefinitely. “There are still non-believers,” Ice-T told Fallon. “I’ve made it through so much in my life, I don’t want to die because of this — especially with a new daughter. I’m aware and I’m concerned and I’m cautious.”

On Aug. 2, Coco shared photos of her father, 63, with their family after he was released from the hospital. Coco said her father was “bound” to an oxygen machine, but he understood he was lucky to survive. “He said being in the hospital for a month was like jail,” Coco wrote. “No windows No visitors and laying in one spot and not being able to walk around was getting to him.. He also adds you could hear people moan in pain during the night and some people weren’t making it… So sad.”

In a July interview with Page Six, Coco said it felt like her family was “falling apart” during her father’s COVID battle. “I’ve been sending as much love as I can but there’s only so much I can do from a distance,” Coco said at the time. “I want to be in the room with him right now and hold his hands, and just let him know that his family loves him, to push through, and this is too early for him to go.”