Why is American rapper Flavor Flav at the Paris Olympics and spending time with the USA Water Polo team? Let us explain.
When it comes to things that make you go “whaa?”, the Olympics are a harvest season of true abundance, a point that’s even more driven home by this year’s featuring stuff that’s extremely, what’s the word, French. From headless Marie Antoinette metal performances to Stranger Things-meets-Phantom of the Opera opening ceremonies, there’s no shortage of curios so far at this year’s Paris Olympiad.
Flavor Flav is at the Paris Olympics
However, if you’ve been watching any of the water polo events so far, you may have noticed a recognizable figure who seems lost and, knowing him, very well might have been.
Yes, rap legend Flavor Flav has been ever-present at the US polo events. You’ve undoubtedly caught a glimpse during the broadcast so far and thought, “wait, shouldn’t he be wearing comically large clock necklaces somewhere?”
However, Flav’s presence is of a more official manner than you might imagine. And it’s fantastic.
How Flavor Flav got involved with Olympic Water Polo
On May 4th, water polo Olympian Maggie Steffens posted on Instagram that revealed how many Olympic athletes hold second and third jobs to help achieve their medal dreams.
Below that post was a comment by Flav, who wrote, “AYYY YOOO,,, as a girl dad and supporter of all women’s sports—imma personally sponsor you my girl,,, whatever you need.”
“And imma sponsor the whole team,” he added. “My manager is in touch with your agent and imma use all my relationships and resources to help all y’all even more. That’s a FLAVOR FLAV promise.”
How good is a Flavor Flav promise, you ask? As good as its weight in gold clock necklaces, because on July 1st, Flavor Flav officially signed a five-year sponsorship deal with USA Water Polo to cover the men’s and women’s water polo teams.
Flav spoke to NBC Olympics in May to explain more of his reasoning behind the support. “For me doing this, I ain’t gonna lie, to me this is one of the biggest things that I feel that I could have ever done in life, outside of the other accomplishments that I’ve made to music,” he said. “By sponsoring a water polo team and helping these girls out, this is bigger than me winning a Grammy.”
It’s all pretty awesome and Flav looks like he’s having the time of his damn life cheering on the team, encouraging other celebrities to do the same, and even hanging out with First Lady Jill Biden.
Flav’s also not content to just cheer from the sidelines. The man wants in on the action too:
@usawomenswaterpoloteam We got Flavor Flav in the pool y’all 👏🏼
♬ original sound – USA Women’s Water Polo
Social media weighs in
Either way, Flav has garnered a whole lot of goodwill from the gesture. Including online:
Honestly, they should probably just let him compete. Just for one competition that they don’t really care about. Come on, the guy’s earned it!
Of course, Flav isn’t the only old-school rap icon to be having a blast at the 2024 Summer Olympics. Snoop Dogg’s there too folks, providing interviews and commentary as only he can.
Your move, Vanilla Ice.
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