By Dorothy Rowley
WI Online Editor
Rapper and reality star Flavor Flav has come clean in his newly-released book, "Flavor Flav: The Icon, the Memoir."
The tell-all provides an eye-opening account of Flav’s life in the spotlight as a member of Public Enemy and his stints on several reality TV shows.
Flav’s real name is William Drayton. The 52-year-old Long Island, NY, native who has admitted to fathering eight children with different women, is also a grandfather of three. His book details among other issues, a longtime drug addiction as well as tensions with Public Enemy member Professor Griff.
"I [was] a drug addict for 18 years; only six years clean," Flav was quoted as saying in a Black America Web article.
"The worst mistake I ever made was experimenting with drugs. I was always more of a follower instead of a leader. Being around the 'hood, you’re following, you always wanna have a big name for yourself, and you don’t wanna be no punk. Whatever my friends were doing, I chose to do. It was the worst experiment that I could do in my life, but would I change it to this day? No. The reason why is because I got to learn about addiction. I got to live through all of that, so that way I could be able to teach about it and hopefully, people learn how I made my mistakes and they [don’t] make the same mistakes that I made."
Flav, who claims to have lost his virginity at age 6 on a playground, was accused in April of failing to pay employees at a new chicken restaurant in Clinton, Iowa, that he operated with a partner.
While the employees alleged that their paychecks bounced, the "Flavor of Love" star told a TV station that the employees were a bunch of disgruntled workers who were haters.
"It's not true information first of all, and second of all, maybe these are people that's just jealous of me being here and probably want to see me out," Flav reportedly said.
