Taste Flav has been lots of issues in his profession: a Grammy-nominated rapper and co-founder of Public Enemy, a actuality TV star, a famous clock fanatic, even the official hype man of the U.S. ladies’s nationwide water polo workforce. However now, he can add faculty soccer mascot to the checklist as he debuted as Tubby, the googly-eyed mayonnaise mascot for Duke’s Mayo, on Friday evening.

Taste Flav was unveiled as Tubby on the finish of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl faculty soccer recreation in Charlotte, N.C. As is custom with the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which started in 2020 after changing the Belk Bowl, Taste Flav dumped 5 gallons of mayonnaise on high of profitable coach P.J. Fleck, whose Minnesota Golden Gophers beat the Virginia Tech Hokies by 24-10.

Within the faculty soccer world, there are greater than 30 bowl video games that compete for sports activities viewers’ divided consideration, and organizers have been upping the viral shenanigans every season. In 2023, the inaugural Pop-Tart Bowl launched a wild-eyed, edible mascot and a pastry-inspired trophy that went viral on-line. In the meantime, a Cheez-It mascot officiated a marriage on the Citrus Bowl this previous New 12 months’s Eve.

Duke’s Mayo started doing the mayonnaise dump in 2021, and final yr the corporate hosted a Mayo Mix for followers. Members competed in 5 mayo-themed challenges, like deadlifting jugs of mayo and catching footballs coated within the condiment, and the winners bought to dump mayo on the profitable coach. This yr, Rebecca Lupesco, model director at Duke’s, needed to amp up the mayo pleasure with a celeb visitor.

“We began taking a look at totally different celebrities on the market, and taste is what Duke’s is thought for,” Lupesco instructed Selection. “It’s our distinctive taste that folks love. Once we had been reaching out to him, he mentioned he had this unhealthy love of mayonnaise.”

“I’ve at all times had mayonnaise on my sandwiches and every little thing,” Taste Flav mentioned. “Not that I’m an enormous mayonnaise freak — nothing like that — however I do like mayonnaise.”

Taste Flav has been busy this school soccer playoff season. He pulled as much as the Fiesta Bowl on New 12 months’s Eve to cheer on the Penn State Nittany Lions as they defeated the Boise State Broncos and superior to the semifinals (Taste Flav’s cousin, Shep Garner, used to play basketball at Penn State). This previous Olympics season, he additionally signed a five-year deal to change into the hype man for the ladies’s nationwide water polo workforce.

Duke’s gave the rapper a customized yellow clock chain with spoons for the fingers, and yellow sneakers with mayo-like swirls and a clock printed on them. He donned the Tubby costume, a big Duke’s jug with bushy eyebrows, on a cold Friday evening after the sport was over.

“The costume was nice,” he mentioned. “Man, it’s lighter than I assumed it was. It’s fairly cool. Not solely that, however it was fairly heat as a result of it’s chilly on the market.”

As for Taste Flav’s future as Tubby? He’s open to coming again subsequent yr: “If they need me to be right here and do that once more, I’d be greater than honored to return again right here and do that once more.”