Flavor Flav: #71 on the Blender 100 for 2006

Flavor Flav is a man looking for love in the wrongest of places: on national television. His can’t-look-away-from-this-car-crash hit VH1 show The Flavor of Love has made his pursuit of the ideal mate a national obsession for some, and turned the 47-year-old rapper into a fitting love icon for our time.

Swaggering into a classy Las Vegas steak house with an elaborate pimp roll, trademark giant clock around his neck, this quintessential hip-hop hype man would naturally draw stares — even if he wasn’t wearing a solid blue silk ensemble: jacket, pants, shirt and tie shimmering the color of Violet Beauregard.

The second season of The Flavor of Love has been highly anticipated; last season there were brawls, hot-tub moments and gifts of gold-plated grilles. The finale became the biggest hit in VH1’s history, drawing 6 million viewers.

“You gotta remember I came into this game an icon,” boasts Flav. “It’s not like I started off from nobody and ended up an overnight success — I was an overnight success before I became a success overnight.” He lets out a bray that has the high rollers at the next table squirming. “Yo, did I say that right?”

Yo, you can say it however you want. Flavor Flav — cofounder of one of music’s greatest groups, Public Enemy — has become a landmark of reality television, first with The Surreal Life 3, then with Strange Love. Hip-hop was just the stepping stone: Flavor says he reaches more people with reality TV than he ever did with reality rapping. The Flavor of Love is the oddest sort of game show, not least because if the guy ever finds the perfect mate, it would mean the end of his series. Not that romantic success could stop Flav. “If in fact I do find true love, I’m going to make sure everybody sees how that true love works out — I’m getting married on TV, I’m having babies on TV, I’m even taking cameras to the Lamaze class. I ain’t kidding.”

“He’s deceptively brilliant as a comedian,” says Michael Hirschorn, an executive vice president at VH1. “People have taken him for granted throughout his career, but he’s very deft. He knows when to play it big and when to play it soft.”

Without making a big deal about “concept,” The Flavor of Love turns reality dating shows upside down. Where other shows hide contestants’ ulterior motives, here ambition is in full view: The girls want to get next to a hip-hop icon who can maybe help their career.

Their drive allows them to see Flavor not as middle-aged damaged goods, but as if he were The Bachelor. One slack-jawed critic compared Flav’s style to that of a homeless guy on the subway. Sure, he does have a way of mumbling his head-scratching non sequiturs. But something about him — maybe it’s the bulletproof sincerity, maybe it’s the can’t-stop-won’t-stop drive, or maybe it’s the Viking helmet — has the ladies in heat. Chicks dig him.

Meanwhile, Flav himself seems a little detached and amused by what’s going on. “I think a lesser person would be totally tripping that he was in a house with 20 hot babes,” says VH1’s Hirschorn. “But it never quite gets to him. He has humility.”

He looked like an innocent bystander last season when a sweet young thing named Pumpkin hocked a loogie right in the face of a competitor, going by the alias New York. It was a moment that made the show; viewers flocked to YouTube to relive the moment (and VH1 made clips conveniently available online.)

Whatever the fallout, Flav’s just glad he wasn’t in the line of fire. “Seriously folks, all jokes aside,” he says, “this is the way Flavor Flav feels. I don’t like violence. I love peace and tranquility around me all the time. I really do. I don’t like violence, but this one time, I really wish New York would have beat her fuckin’ ass! I was surprised at Pumpkin. Man, I love me some Pumpkin! I still do.

“But when the cameras turned off, I told New York to go beat her ass. And I love you, Pumpkin, but I’m sorry to say you would have got what you deserved.”

Meanwhile last season’s winner, Hoopz, succeeded either because (a) she was a personable beauty or (b) she had him breathing hard where it counted — on the basketball court. One test on the show involved a little one-on-one action. “I ain’t gonna lie — her beating my ass was kinda sexy,” says Flav. She won the competition, but Hoopz and Flav didn’t click after the first season. They’ve remained good friends, and Flav is a vocal defender of his ex in the wake of her recent arrest for allegedly slugging a policeman in Dearborn, Michigan.

At the end of every episode, one girl gets the heave-ho — ahem — and Flav commemorates their passing with a glass of champagne poured out for a homey who didn’t make the grade. He seems so confident, it’s surprising to hear that even this love god wonders about the ones who got away. “Let me just say this. I really do feel deep down in my heart — I don’t really feel, I know — that I made some mistakes on The Flavor of Love.” What other TV star will say this about his own show? “I got rid of some people I shouldn’t have gotten rid of. I kept some people that shouldn’t have stayed. What can I say — that comes from feelings. Watch out for your feelings!”

One lobster, one steak and three cognacs later, the reality star slips on his blue jacket and pimp walks into the adjoining casino. An employee grabs him by the arm and tells him she watches him fanatically. As he strides toward the craps tables (five $100 bills down in less than ten minutes), he looks back in her direction.

“She better watch,” he cackles, “or I’ll rip her eyeballs out.” He will not be denied. Try and turn away.