Key Takeaways
- At the 2025 BMAC Gala, Flavor Flav addressed his April relapse and spoke about his renewed commitment to sobriety.
- He shared that he returned to “day one” and is focused on long-term recovery through accountability.
- Flav encouraged others in recovery to “keep it moving” and not dwell on setbacks.
Flavor Flav is reaffirming his commitment to sobriety after a brief setback earlier this year.
The Public Enemy legend opened up at the 2025 Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) Gala in Beverly Hills, telling PEOPLE he’s determined to stay the course after relapsing in April. “Right now it's going very well. I'm back on point. I'm back on track. You know what I'm saying? And this is the way that I plan on staying for the rest of my life,” he said.
In April, he posted to Instagram Stories to let fans know about the slip, writing that he wanted to “hold myself publicly accountable.” “I remain authentic to who I am and a large part of the past 4.5 years for me has been my sobriety journey. I think I’ve been an inspiration to many that if I could get sober, anyone can do it,” Flav wrote at the time. “But just when you think it’s easy, it ain’t. I briefly relapsed. I say this to admit my mistake and publicly hold myself accountable. I am a human being who makes mistakes and it doesn’t make me a bad person. I hope those who are around me support my choice to be sober.”
He added, “I went back to day one, again. Time [doesn't] stop, my journey continues.”
Last year, Flav shared on the “Off the Record with DJ Akademiks” podcast that before getting clean in 2020, he was spending “$2,400 to $2,600 a day ... for six years straight” on drugs.
Flavor Flav’s advice for others on their sobriety journey
“If you take a fall, don't lay there and stay stuck,” Flav said at the gala. “You got to get up off of that fall and you have to K-I-M — keep it moving. Operation no choice is now in progress. Either you keep it moving, or you stay stuck. And the name of the game is to keep it moving.”