PARIS, France — Flavor Flav held a press conference in Paris on Friday (26th July) to outline his sponsorship of the USA’s women’s water polo team with the 2024 about to get underway. The veteran hip-hop artist, a founding member of the group Public Enemy, is in the French capital as part of his duties as the official “hype man” for the team.
The road to Flav's Olympic debut began when U.S. captain Meggie Steffens posted on Instagram about her experiences with the U.S. women's program, which has won an unprecedented three straight gold medals going into Paris.
While paying tribute to her teammates and expressing her love for her grueling sport, Steffens also highlighted the constant financial struggle for most Olympic athletes.
Flav’s manager brought the issue to his attention, and he promised his assistance in a comment on Steffens' post.
“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,” Flav wrote.
That exchange turned into a unique sponsorship deal between Flav — whose legal name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr. — and USA Water Polo.
Flav made an undisclosed financial contribution to the women's program as part of the five-year agreement, and he also agreed to collaborate on social media to help bring attention to the small sport.
He is planning to attend the Olympic openers for the U.S. women and men.
The women face Greece on Saturday, and the men play Italy on Sunday.
When asked in an interview about what Olympic sport he would be best at, Flav said, “I’m going to pick a good one. Let me pick a good one for you. Because you know what, I could be the best at something but I also could be the worst at something too, and you know what? Being the worst ain’t going to be in the vocabulary, because I’m always going to stay the best, but I don’t know, maybe the 200 metre run. No! The 100 metres, because I’m 65 right now, so I don’t think I could run 200 metres!”