Flavor Flav Says He Was Booted From Backstreet Boys Dressing Room at Rock Center Tree Lighting: ‘What Did I Ever Do to NBC?’

Flavor Flav did not have a holly jolly time at Wednesday night’s (Dec. 4) Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The legendary Public Enemy hype man was on hand for the annual holiday tradition and in a since-deleted tweet he said that he was inexplicably booted from the Backstreet Boys’ dressing room by NBC security.

“I feel weird … I was invited to the Rockefeller Tree Lighting tonite and I was escorted to see my boys … THE BACKSTREET BOYS … and we were backstage in their dressing room … security came up to me and says @nbc does not want me in this area and I need to leave,” he wrote.

The 65-year-old rapper said things got even weirder after that. “At the same time,,, their social media woman came up and asked to capture social content,” he wrote. “What did I ever do to NBC or anyone,,?? all I ever do is try to spread joy and love,,, and I think I did that for NBC at the Olympics.”

That latter comment was especially pointed in light of how ubiquitous Flav was at this summer’s Olympic games in Paris, which were broadcast by NBC. The network gave the PE MC lots of airtime, covering his pledge of cash and gifts to the U.S. Women’s Water Polo team and pick up rent for discus thrower Veronica Fraley, as well as chronicling his hop around from venue-to-venue cheering on the U.S. teams; Flav said afterwards that he wanted to throw his clock in the ring to be an official torchbearer at the 2028 L.A. games.

At press time a spokesperson for NBC had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment and it did not appear as if the BSB had commented on the alleged incident.

Though he removed the initial post, a dejected Flav later returned to X to add, “I deleted the tweet … but my spirit is broken.” A fan replied that they were sorry that happened to him and said NBC was wrong in reportedly asking him to leave, adding that the BSB “should have spoken up” about the incident. Flav assured them that “they spoke up for me,,, they sure did.” The New York native also later shared a video in which he was seen having a good time at the tree lighting, counting down to the big moment, writing, “Christmas in the city … ain’t nothing like the Rockefeller tree lighting.”

See Flav’s tweets below.