Flavor Flav was born on March 16, 1959, in Roosevelt, New York, with his real name William Jonathan Drayton Jr.. His Father William (a restaurant entrepreneur) and mother Anna, raised him and his siblings Steven and Jean in Freeport, New York. When he was a child, he learned to play the piano and other instruments by himself.
During his junior year at Freeport High School, Drayton was a member of the church choir and a student. After setting his family's house on fire while playing with a lighter as a toddler, he was arrested multiple times for breaking into and robbing stores as a teenager. He met Carlton Ridenhour , AKA Chuck, at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York, in 1978, and began performing on his campus radio show. Drayton adopted the the name Flavor Flav once they began rapping together.
Flav has seven kids total, three with Angie Parker, three with Karen Ross, one with Elizabeth Trujillo. While he was dating other ladies on 'Flavor of Love,' he got engaged to Trujillo. The couple apparently wed some time around 2013. The two appeared on VH1's 'Couples Therapy' the year after Flav was arrested for beating Liz and threatening her teenage kid with a knife in October 2012. Parker sued Flav in 2012 for the $111,186 in child support he owed. Facing a six-month prison sentence, Flav agreed to pay Angie $25,000 in June of that year and make monthly installments of $1,200.