LAS VEGAS Rap star Flavor Flav of the group Public Enemy is free on $23,000 bail and will appear in a Las Vegas court next week on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence battery, a court spokeswoman said on Thursday.
The charges stem from a report of a fight by the 53-year-old rapper's fiancé. Flavor Flav, whose given name is William Drayton Jr, was also said to have threatened the woman's teenage son with a knife, police said in a statement.
Flavor Flav was arrested after a call to police came in before dawn on Wednesday from a residence about 10 miles southwest of the Las Vegas Strip, police said. He is due to appear in court on Monday.
"The caller advised she had been involved in a physical altercation with her fiancé who was identified as William Drayton," the police statement said.
Flavor Flav has posted on his Twitter account a tweet by a follower that said, "Someone forgot to tell (Flavor Flav) not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."
The rap star faces a maximum six years in prison if convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and up to six months in jail if found guilty of domestic violence battery, said Tess Driver, a spokeswoman for the Clark County District Attorney's Office.
The Long Island-born Flavor Flav is best known as a rapper with the politically oriented group Public Enemy, which rose to fame in the 1980s with albums such as "Yo! Bum Rush the Show" and "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back".
His attention-grabbing wardrobe features a giant clock that he wears around his neck, and a Viking helmet. He opened a Las Vegas fried chicken and shrimp restaurant in March called "Flavor Flav's House of Flavor", which closed less than six months later.
In recent years, he has also starred in a number of reality shows, including "Flavor of Love", which ran from 2006 to 2008 and saw him look for a suitable romantic match from a bevy of female contestants.
(Reporting by Tim Pratt; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Dale Hudson)
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