Category - Enteratinment
Flavor Flav Slams NBC for Mistreatment at Rockefeller Tree Lighting
Manhattan's Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree had the best hype man in the business for its annual holiday lighting on Wednesday night with Flavor Flav in attendance. But he says that NBC treated him like a second-class citizen, essentially, after initially inviting him to the event.
Flav, whose real name is William Drayton, took to social media on Wednesday evening to call out the network in a since-deleted post to X, formerly Twitter.
"I feel weird… I was invited to the Rockefeller Tree lighting tonight and I was escorted to see my boys… THE BACKSTREET BOYS," Flav wrote, explaining that he was backstage in the band's dressing room when a security guard came up and told him that "NBC does not want me in this area and I need to leave."
"At the same time, their social media woman came up and asked to capture social media content," the perplexed rapper continued. "What did I ever do to NBC or anyone?? all I ever do is try to spread joy and love… and I think I did that for NBC at the Olympics."
Indeed, Flav did generate a ton of publicity for NBC during the Olympics; particularly when it came to the U.S. women's water polo team, with whom he signed a five-year sponsorship deal to be the their official hype man. He likewise traveled to Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics to cheer the team on in person.
After deleting his initial post, the 65-year-old added in a follow-up: "I deleted the tweet ... but my spirit is broken."
Still, he was able to get his holiday cheer on, posting a video from the crowd while proudly wearing his Team USA gear. "Christmas in the city ... ain’t nothing like the Rockefeller tree lighting," he captioned the clip.
Christmas in the city,,, ain’t nothing like the Rockefeller tree lighting . 🫶🏾@rockcenternyc pic.twitter.com/NgceNqrHMh
— FLAVOR FLAV (@FlavorFlav) December 5, 2024
NBC hasn't commented on the incident, but hopefully the whole thing was all just a big misunderstanding that has since been cleared up.