Flavor Flav Wants Taylor Swift’s Thoughts on His Masked Singer Stint

Flavor Flav was the first person in 13 seasons of The Masked Singer to sing a Taylor Swift song — and he doesn’t take the honor lightly.

“I was told by the people at the Masked Singer stage that they were never ever able to clear a Taylor Swift song,” the rapper, 65, exclusively told Us Weekly after his elimination on the Wednesday, March 13, episode of the Fox singing competition show. “So I just want to give a big shout-out and thanks to Taylor Swift and her crew for clearing that song for me to do. … They cleared it because of me. And honestly, I doubt if they’ll clear another one, you know what I’m saying? Not unless I come back!”

Flav didn’t get to pick which Swift song he performed, but as it happens, “Bad Blood” is actually his favorite tune by his favorite artist. (Dressed as Space Ranger, he sang the 1989 track during the March 5 episode.)

“The reason why is because that’s the first song that really allowed me to identify who Taylor Swift is,” the Public Enemy cofounder explained. “That girl is amazing. When she writes, she writes about her experiences that she goes through in life, and the experiences that she goes through in life are identifiable to millions of people like myself. So that’s why I support her and I go so hard for her. And I’m honored and proud to say that, yes, I am a big Taylor Swift fan, and she’s one of the most important artists of our decade.”

He added, “I don’t know any other artist that is able to throw a concert and it hits the Richter scale. Taylor Swift did that in Seattle, Washington. Her concert was so strong, it caused an earthquake, you know what I’m saying? Come on! Who else can do that? That’s why she’s one of the most important artists of our time and our decade, and I’m very proud of her, so proud of her. And I’m so proud to be connected and to be called King Swiftie. And I didn’t get the name from Taylor. I got that name from the Swifties. ‘Cause the Swifties, they’re large, No. 1, and No. 2, they see how hard that I go in for Taylor.”

Flav hasn’t yet heard from Swift, 35, about his performance, but he feels certain that she’ll only have positive feedback for him.

“I can’t wait to see what she has to say about it,” he told Us. “I think she’s gonna have something good to say about it though, ’cause I don’t think I did a bad job with the song. And you know what? The reason why I had to do a good job with that song is because I wouldn’t ever, ever, ever in this lifetime make my girl look bad. Never. As much as I love her and how much I’m proud of her. Come on. I gotta represent the best. She’s the best, man.”

Flav brought an infectious energy to The Masked Singer — which is an exceptionally joyful show on its own — but he says that leading with positivity is the way he approaches everything in life.

“I’m gonna summarize it up like this. Just like Nike says, just do it,” he explained. “I do have my days. Everybody’s got their days. And when I’m having one of those bad days, what I do is when I see people, I gotta shut that bad day off for a minute, give that fan what they want, and then after that, go back to having a bad day. Because you never want to give people a bad taste in their mouth. You want to give ’em good memories to take to the grave about you, not bad memories. I always want people to think the best of me, so that’s why I shut it off and I give them what they want. And then after that, I go back to feeling the way that I’m feeling until it changes.”

The Masked Singer airs on Fox Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET. New episodes stream the next day on Hulu.