‘Ranch Rules’: Ebie on Pushing Her Father Eazy-E’s Legacy and Building a Name For Herself (Exclusive)

The latest reality television phenomenon is Relatively Famous: Ranch Rules. The E! Series, which airs every Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, follows eight celebrity kids on a Colorado ranch as they try to negate the stereotype of being spoiled Hollywood kids. The series stars children of notable faces like comedian Martin Lawrence and actor David Hasselhoff. But none have a background like Ebie.

Ebie is the daughter of hip hop legend and N.W.A. founder, Eric “Eazy E” Wright. Eazy is credited for putting gangsta rap on the map and not being afraid to detail the brutal realities of living in the inner city. He rapped about drugs and police brutality in songs like “F— tha Police” and “Straight Outta Compton.” The rapper died at the age of 31 in March 1995, just a month after he was diagnosed with AIDS. Despite a medical diagnosis, many believe there is foul play surrounding his death, including his family. There have long been rumors about how he contracted the deadly disease or whether or not a hit was placed on his life. Last year, Ebie and her mother Tracy explored them in the four-part We tv docuseries The Mysterious Death of Eazy-E.

Following in her father’s footsteps and pursuing a music career, Ebie is looking to establish herself outside of his legacy. PopCulture.com spoke with Ebie about her decision to participate in Ranch Rules, bonding with her co-stars, and what she’s doing to push her father’s work forward.

PC: How did this project come about and why did you decide to participate in something like this? It’s definitely a different concept than something we’ve seen on reality television before.

EW: Really? I feel like it’s like a mixture of things that people have seen.

Outside of The Simple Life.

That’s true. And it’s so crazy. It feels like a mixture of Simple Life meets Real World. And honestly, I grew up watching those shows. So, that was really exciting for me to throw myself in that kind of environment and just see what happens. I think it’s really more so my childhood obsession that caused me to do this.

Did you know any of the other celebrity kids on the show before signing on? Or were you aware of who else would be on the ranch beforehand?

No, not at all. They kept everything top secret. We had no idea who was going to be there. I think all of us were back at home when we all got cast and everybody was like, ‘Who else is going to be on here?’ I think we all did our research. Everybody had their guesses of who was going to come and crazy enough, none of the people that any of us guessed would be there were there. And surprisingly, we all hadn’t known each other at all. It’s so weird. 

The only one little connection, I actually met Tay, David Hasselhoff’s daughter, one time when we were 13 or 14 years old at a dinner with her. My mom was in the music business. And so we went to this dinner with Joel Diamond and David Hasselhoff. And he had his daughters there and we all met and we took a picture. I’ve been trying to find this picture literally since we left the ranch. I can’t find it yet. I have to go to my big storage. It’s so weird. Because it’s just crazy that we did cross paths one time in our life, but none of us had known each other.

Who were you the most excited to see once you were there? Who were you the most excited to get to know? It’s such a good mixture.

It is a really good mixture. Right away, off the bat, I would say Tay because I knew that we had met before and she has such a bubbly, crazy personality. And honestly, she was in my world. We have a lot of mutual friends and we were more of the, I would say, the Hollywood socialites. Probably her, me, and Myles the most out of everybody. Definitely those two, just for lifestyle purposes. And immediately it was in Jazz, Jasmine Lawrence. That’s who right away, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m excited to get to know them and see how this goes.’ At the end, I ended up becoming the absolute closest with Harry. But all of us are pretty good friends.

And what is something that you want viewers to take away from your participation in the show or get to know more about you outside of what hip-hop fans already know about you? We know who your father is. We know the work he’s done in his space. I think that this was a good show to, not necessarily separate you from that work, but I guess to show a different side of you.

Absolutely. And that was another reason why I did this as well. I went into this being 100% vulnerable, open, and transparent – and just willing to let it all out. [I wanted to showcase] my story, my background, my upbringing, and also my personality. Because I skipped the phase of showing all the personality on Instagram. Everybody’s doing lives and TikTok’s and all this stuff that goes on. I wasn’t really doing any of that stuff. 

I think that there had been some years from the last time I had been on TV until now where people didn’t really know what was going on and they didn’t know how I had grown or what I was doing in my life at all or what my personality was like these days. I really wanted to show all of that. And I think I was completely open on this show. So far, they haven’t shown every single thing obviously. There’s only so much time allotted but I’m hoping definitely more so just people understand my story, my background, and really my personality and just what I have to offer coming next, honestly.

And speaking of your story and your background, I mentioned that you’ve done a lot of work to keep your father’s legacy alive. And you partnered with We tv for a series around his passing. What led to that?

My mother and I and my sister Erica, we had actually been trying to get a documentary done for maybe 15 years, long before documentaries were even popular. And it was really tough. It was a long road of even trying to make it happen because a lot of people, honestly, didn’t really want to talk about my father’s death and it was just weird. It was a lot of secrecy and strange things. I don’t know. Everybody was just weird. And fortunately for us, the times started to change. And then all of a sudden, everybody wanted to be heard and everybody wanted to tell their story. Everything’s just so different now. And, before we even partnered up with We tv and did that project, we had launched our own Kickstarter and we were trying to do just crowdfunding and do it on our own and that wasn’t successful.

But we ended up doing a partnership with a big production company and we did the deal with WeTV but that ended up being a limited series. That’s how we ended up with The Mysterious Death of Eazy-E,” which we did dive into the conspiracy theories surrounding my father’s death and debunked a lot of stuff, but that actually never went into what did happen. It weeded out what didn’t happen, but it didn’t go into the things that one, we already knew or things that we also discovered along the way of what actually happened. That documentary, I would say, is still different from the one that we had titled A Ruthless Scandal. If you do some research, you’ll see tons of information about that. We’re still actually going to be doing that project where it will focus on what actually did happen and then the aftermath of his demise as well.

You said initially a lot of people didn’t even want to talk about your father’s death, you said that now you feel like times have changed. But do you feel like there’s finally more of a respect or an honor of what your father contributed to the culture?

I think there is. I think there’s certain people that I would say recognize what he did and what he was as not just an artist, but a visionary, a businessman. There’s tons of people that look up to him. Even Kanye West, he’s such an Eazy-E fan. I watched him on My Next Guest with David Letterman and that was a couple years ago and Kanye was talking to him and he was showing him a line of these Yeezy shirts and he called them his spirit shirts. And he had one of his mom, Donda, and he had one of my dad and he’s like, ‘Eazy-E was the original Black businessman.’ He was like, ‘When I put this on, I feel Eazy-E’s spirit.’ And to be honest, things like that, somebody who’s that huge and that influential keeping my father’s name alive, it does help.

And it makes a big difference. And for the younger generations, especially too for them to understand who really made a lot of this stuff possible. And that’s really my goal as well. It sucks because a lot of my focus has been on trying to get the story out there about his death, but ultimately it’s because his death really overshadows all of his accomplishments and it’s like, we need to weed that out to get to all of the things he really made possible and just really celebrate him properly.

What other projects are you working on, whether that has to do with putting out more information or educational materials in regards to your father and all of his contributions? And in what ways are you pushing forward for your own individual brand?

We’re still working on A Ruthless Scandal, and for that, that’s really, for me and my mind right now, hopefully that would be the last big thing as far as a project [surrounding my father]. But ultimately what I’ve been trying to do is push for some sort of change when it comes to his estate and his legacy as nothing was left behind to us and that’s really been another fight. It’s not just how my father died that I’ve been trying to talk about. It’s also what really went down and how all of his assets were taken in the hospital when he was isolated. That’s really the issue. In real life, I’m really fighting for that for some sort of change and to have some hand in his legacy and have some rights, honestly.

And then outside of that, really focusing on my own career too and just the things I have going on. I am a pop singer. I am really trying to separate myself and get out of that whole Eazy-E daughter thing. I’m really trying to just build Ebie and we’re so different as far as our image. He was a gangster rapper from Compton. I’m a pop singer from Calabasas. It’s so different and I’m a girl. My image, it’s not anything like him. But, his name is so big and he’s so iconic. Especially his image. People dress up as my dad on Halloween. He’s literally a costume. And then he has all the merch. People wear t-shirts of him. And his image is so much that when you hear Eazy-E, it’s really hard to get that out of your head and focus just on Ebie. That’s really what I’m trying to do. Just really get my music out. 

I have some other projects. I’m in front of the camera, but I’m also behind the scenes as well. I executive produced that limited series [on We tv]. I actually created and am producing two new shows I won’t be featured on at all. Just my production company will be doing these two new shows. I have some other stuff coming. I’m a huge foodie. I have a big passion project called Ebie Eats. That’s an Instagram page, but it’s bigger than that. It’s actually going to become a YouTube show that I’m working on right now. And I’ll have some Ebie Eats merch coming soon too. 

I’m all over the place. In that regard, I am a lot like my father, just deep diving into everything and I’m also getting back into acting. I’ve studied acting my entire life. I think that’s what makes it so easy for me to even do reality television and just being in front of the camera. Really those are my next plans. I’m trying to see myself in the next season of Euphoria or something.