U.S. Olympian couldn't pay her rent. Flavor Flav and Alexis Ohanian took care of it (2024)

Veronica Fraley is scheduled to compete at the Paris Olympics for the first time Friday.

So now probably is not a good time for distractions — like, say, rent being due back home in Nashville and not having the funds to cover it.

Luckily, hip-hop pioneer Flavor Flav, billionaire Alexis Ohanian and others have Fraley covered.

Fraley was a second-year graduate student at Vanderbilt University when she won the NCAA discus championship while setting a school record with her throw of 208 feet and 10 inches in Eugene, Ore., in June. She made the U.S. national team in the event several weeks later at the Olympic trials.

But the day before her Olympic debut, Fraley had something else on her mind.

“I compete in the Olympic Games TOMORROW and can’t even pay my rent,” Fraley wrote Thursday on X before adding that “my school only sent about 75% of my rent while they pay football players (who haven’t won anything) enough to buy new cars and houses.”

Fraley clarified in a subsequent X post that “my irritation isn’t with the school itself, mainly the rules that bar me from making the amount I’m WORTH as a collegiate athlete” while name, image and likeness deals often favor “popularity over performance. that’s all I’m sayin.”

Flav is in Paris as the official hype man for the U.S. water polo teams. He has also pledged to help back the women’s water polo team financially. But apparently the Public Enemy co-founder’s support isn’t limited to just one sport. He saw Fraley’s initial post and offered to help.

“I gotchu,” Flav responded. “DM me and I’ll send payment TODAY so you don’t have to worry bout it TOMORROW,,, and imma be rooting for ya tomorrow LETZ GO,!!!”

Ohanian, the Reddit co-founder who is married to tennis great and four-time Olympic gold medalist Serena Williams, also commented on Fraley’s post, offering to split Fraley’s rent with Flav.

But Ohanian ended up doing more than that. He shared a screenshot that showed he had transferred $7,760 to Fraley, an amount he chose as a nod to his technology firm Seven Seven Six.

Fraley also set up an online fundraiser to “support my track and field journey as I start my professional athletic career and continue to represent team USA!”

Later, Flav posted on X that Fraley wouldn’t have to worry about making rent for the next several months.

“This [is] the power of community,” he wrote. “my girl @vmfraley had 7000 people see her tweet,, only 41 people ‘liked’ it,, only 5 people commented,, only 1 tagged me and @alexisohanian. Now that tweet been seen by 10 MILLION people,, her rent paid off for the year,, and people gots her back!”

Ohanian added: “Now she can focus on getting that hardware!”

That’s what Fraley intends to do.

“This makes every difference in the WORLD,” she wrote in a post to Ohanian and Flav, “& I hope to represent team USA well this week.”