PARIS — Here’s a sentence never before uttered in human history: Flavor Flav and the First Lady of the United States hung out on Saturday at an Olympic water polo match in Paris. Even by the come-one, come-all standards of the Olympics, this was a pretty strange, and fun, moment.
The Flav-FLOTUS summit came about in a very 2024 way: via Instagram comment. In May, Maggie Steffens, captain of the U.S. women’s water polo team, published a lengthy, heartfelt post about the honor of representing Team USA, her love for her team and the struggles of competing from a financial perspective.
“Many of my teammates aren’t just badass champions, but also teachers, business owners, coaches, physicians assistants, and more,” she wrote. “Some may not know this, but most Olympians need a 2nd (or 3rd) job to support chasing the dream (myself included!) and most teams rely on sponsors for travel, accommodations, nutritional support, rent/lodging, and simply affording to live in this day and age.”
Soon afterward, Flav — who had absolutely no prior connection to water polo, but does have an Instagram account and an eye for a good story — showed up in the post’s comments and made what he called a “FLAVOR FLAV promise,” writing “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.” Just like that, the founding member of Public Enemy, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and frequent reality show protagonist/antagonist became the most famous water polo fan … ever?
Pretty much the only thing that a 65-year-old rapper and a three-time gold-medal-winning water polo team have in common is the fact that they share a common flag. But in this case, that’s enough. Flav has already brought much more attention to a sport that, historically, has struggled to find attention in a crowded Olympic slate.
“Everybody wants to feel like they got their back covered, somebody has their back. And when they feel that, it makes them feel more powerful, that makes them feel better,” Flav said on Friday. “That gives them a lot more energy to go out and to get that fourth gold medal because these girls have got three gold medals right now. I want to see them get a fourth one, and I want to help them out.”
“He has really opened the door for people to learn about our team and different communities, different people who would have never heard of water polo,” Steffens said on Wednesday. “And that’s exactly what sports like us need. He’s been really great at shining any light back on us, and we look forward to having him here in Paris and just keeping that positive energy going.”
Like his fellow turn-of-the-’90s rapper Snoop Dogg, Flav is using these Olympics as an unexpected but effective form of image-burnishing. He’s appealing to the Gen Xers who recall him from his days in Public Enemy as they watch the Games with their children. He’s making some money off this partnership — he won’t say how much — via a five-year endorsement deal he signed to hype the men’s and women’s water polo teams.
And he is living up to every inch of that contract. He spent the first three-quarters of Saturday’s match — a 15-6 victory over Greece — high in the stands, cheering on Team USA with his own custom Flav jersey and water polo cap (and, of course, a clock). With the game well in hand, he walked down to the mezzanine level to cheer over the match’s final eight minutes.
That’s where he was — hyping up the crowd, posing for selfies, offering snap commentary (“They gonna need a lot more than four points to beat us!”) — when the word came down: First Lady Jill Biden wanted to meet Flav, but it had to be now, right now. Flav and several others dashed through several heavily tinted doors at the Olympic Aquatics Center, and there was the First Lady, sporting a custom-knitted white Olympics sweater and a wide smile.
“Thank you so much for doing this,” Biden told Flav as she and others posed for pics. Then they embraced, Flav pecked FLOTUS on the cheek, and then offered up a few parting words: “You take care. May God give you all his blessings.” Biden and her security retinue left the arena, and Flav returned to his customary role as hype man.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s GO!” he called as the seconds wound down, and when the clock hit zeroes, Flav uttered a call familiar to any child of the ’80s: “YEEEEEEEEEAHHHHH!” He spent the next 20 minutes, right up until security ushered everyone out of the arena, posing for pictures, taking selfies, signing autographs, bro-hugging and embracing everyone who came his way.
Flav is still a one-man hype machine, and he’s firmly in the Team USA camp now. And if he keeps this up — and if Team USA keeps on winning — he might have to figure out how to wear both a clock and a gold medal around his neck.
Source Agencies
