Lifestyle
Flavor Flav is among women’s hockey team fans outraged by presidential snub
American rapper and television personality Flavor Flav watches on during the Women’s Monobob Bobsleigh at the Cortina Sliding Centre, on Sunday February 15, 2026 at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Italy.
Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images
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After President Trump snubbed the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team, some of its fans were quick to respond. Among them, Flavor Flav, the erstwhile member of the pioneering rap group Public Enemy and television personality known for the bejeweled clocks he wears as signature necklaces.
In a locker room call over the weekend, Trump invited the U.S. men’s hockey team to the White House to celebrate their gold medal victory over Canada, and offered to transport them there on a military plane.
“I must tell you, we’re going to have to bring the women’s team. You do know that,” he added, to laughter from the male athletes. To underscore his apparent disdain for the women’s team, Trump joked that he would likely be impeached if he didn’t.
The U.S. women’s hockey team won a gold medal of their own at the Olympics, also trouncing Canada. Players declined the president’s invitation to the State of the Union address, which came in the wake of his phone call to the men’s team.
Flavor Flav was quick to offer an alternative. “If the USA Women’s Hockey Team wants a real celebration and invite… I’ll host them in Las Vegas,” the rapper wrote on his official Instagram channel. “Do some nice dinners and shows and good times. I’m sure I can get a hotel and airline to help me out here and celebrate these women for real for real.”
In recent years, Flav has fashioned himself as an enthusiastic proponent of the Olympics, acting as an official “hype man” for this year’s bobsled and skeleton teams. He also sponsored the U.S. water polo teams at the Paris Olympics in 2024, in part after learning how little women athletes earn.
“I actually love this for Flavor Flav,” says Frankie de la Cretaz, an independent journalist who writes the queer-oriented Out of Your League newsletter. “For him, this really started when he got behind the women’s water polo team during the Summer Olympics. And to be clear, the U.S. is one of the only countries that does not federally fund their elite Olympic and national team athletes. Many of them are funding themselves through sponsorships.
De la Cretaz likened the effort to crowd funding, and added that women athletes tend to be far more under-resourced than men.
Flav’s public stand in support of the female hockey players is quite a turn, De la Cretaz added, for a celebrity who once referred to twin female contestants on his VHS reality show Flavor of Love as “Thing One” and “Thing Two.” Over the past few years, Flav has supported female athletes consistently, they said, and not just during the high-wattage events of the Olympics. “He never does it in a way that feels demeaning or performative. And I have nothing but respect, actually, for the way he’s shown up for women athletes.”
De la Cretaz said they saw more hypocrisy coming from a president who has worked to ban transgender athletes. “So much of the anti-trans sports push has been about quote unquote, protecting women’s sports. And if you want to ‘protect women’s sports,’ it actually would be about investing and giving them the equal opportunity that men have and respecting them as athletes.”
Lifestyle
How World Cup fans reflect America back at us : It’s Been a Minute
Inside the World Cup Cultural Exchange
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What does America look like to visitors?
We’re finding out in real time as fans and athletes from all over the world visit the United States for World Cup matches across the country. From Ranch dressing, to the wonders of all-you-can-eat buffets, tourists are getting a taste of all the USA has to offer, but how do we square the warm welcome for the World Cup with the United States’ recent stances on immigration? Brittany is joined by immigration reporter Jasmine Garsd, and NPR reporter Juliana Kim to find out.
Want more global perspectives on culture? Check out these episodes:
How often do you think about the American Empire?
Make life harder (and better): Learn another language.
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Follow Brittany on Instagram: @bmluse
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This episode was produced by Liam McBain and Corey Antonio Rose. It was edited by Neena Pathak. Our Supervising Producer is Cher Vincent. Our Executive Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
Lifestyle
François-Henri Bennahmias to Launch New Luxury Swiss Watch Brand N3W5
Lifestyle
Greetings from London, where Banksy’s flag man is a warning cry
In central London’s Waterloo Place, a life-size statue that emerged overnight in late April has been creating a stir. When I visited a few weeks after it was erected, local authorities had already set up protective barriers around it.
The installation — signed by the famed street artist Banksy — depicts a man in a suit hoisting a flag as he strides over a precipice. As he marches on, the flag blows backward to cover his face, leaving him unaware he’s only a step away from a perilous fall.
Set among grand monuments celebrating Britain’s past, the “flag man” takes on a particular visual irony at a time when the country — and much of the world — is debating its path forward.
Like many viewers there, I found myself wondering whether this statue is Banksy’s warning about the consequences of uncritical nationalism, or simply a reflection on human shortsightedness. Or, perhaps, it is just prompting us to ponder a broader question: What happens when devotion to a symbol prevents us from seeing what lies ahead?
Whatever the message, the work feels remarkably attuned to the current moment.
For more Far-Flung Postcards, click here.
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