Las Vegas Weekly

March 23, 2009 · 5:45 AM

Photo Gallery: Flavor Flav celebrates the Big 5-0 with blowout bash at Jet

By Robin Leach

Flavor Flav is presented with a 50th birthday cake at Jet in The Mirage.

Photo: Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com

Part-time Las Vegas resident and father of seven William Draper has become a phenomenon with his hip-hop hits and hit reality TV shows. Who, you say?!

You know William Draper better as Flavor Flav of Public Enemy -- and from Flavor of Love and his appearances on The Surreal Life.

Flav was in rare form -- wearing yet another giant-sized clock around his neck -- when he celebrated his 50th birthday with a full-on blowout bash at Jet inside The Mirage. Every time he screamed out his signature slogans “Yeah, boy!” and “Flavor Flav!” the packed crowd went wild -- and he upped his clowning antics every time. Our contributing photographers Erik Kabik and Scott Harrison were on hand for the celebration to snap these party shots.

Flav was presented with a custom-made, oversized Jet nightclub timepiece permanently set to 5 o’clock in honor of his Big 5-0 birthday. He says he wears the clocks to remind fans and himself how precious time really is. Then the Jean-Philippe Patisserie presented a birthday cake in the shape of a Viking helmet, which Flav wore as his lid on Flavor of Love.

He posed for photos with fans -- and the sexy go-go dancers -- outside Jet and inside the club. He was on and off the mic all night long, adding to the excitement of the wild celebration, and he partied until 3 a.m.!

Flav, who also is a grandfather, has openly admitted that he nearly wrecked his life permanently because of drugs, and it wasn’t until a family intervention sent him to the Betty Ford Clinic that he began cleaning up his act and ending his prison problems. Last time I talked with him, he assured me: “I’m totally clean. I’m all better and feeling strong. I’ll never go back there again.”

After three seasons of Flavor of Love, he starred in MyNetworkTV’s Under One Roof and released a self-titled solo album.

Punter Mitch Berger of the Pittsburgh Steelers also was at Jet and received a congratulatory cake for his team’s Super Bowl victory!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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