Raleigh Native Veronica Fraley Achieves Olympic Dreams With Support From Flavor Flav, Alexis Ohanian

2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field - Day 7

Source: Christian Petersen / Getty

A Hip-Hop icon and a tech mogul come to the aid of a Raleigh native who is making her Olympic dreams come true.

Veronica Fraley, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, is competing in the disc throw Friday (Aug. 2) at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. One day before, she went viral on X (formerly Twitter) after expressing concern about how she was going to pay her rent while overseas.

“I compete in the Olympic Games TOMORROW and can’t even pay my rent,” she tweeted. “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.”

She clarified in a later tweet that she wasn’t bashing her school but rather the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) system for student athletes. She says that the rules bar her from making the amount she’s worth as a college athlete, which favors popularity more than actual performance, as reported by WRAL.

High-Profile Supporters

The tweet caught the attention of many, but two responders in particular decided to do more than tweet.

Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav responded to the tweet, offering to pay her rent. The legendary hypeman wrote “I gotchu, DM me so I can send payment TODAY so you don’t have to worry about this TOMORROW.”

That also prompted a response from Reddit co-founder (and Serena Williams’ husband) Alexis Ohanian, who offered to split the cost with Flav.

WRAL reports that thanks to the generosity of both Flav and Ohanian, Fraley’s rent is paid for the entire year.

Now that her rent is settled, Fraley now looks to bring home some gold in her first Olympics.

“Since I’ve gotten a little bit of experience at a national stage and a world stage, I think just going in there with a mindset of trying to shake some things up, you know, do some things that people may or may not be expecting, just putting my best foot forward.”

Fraley currently has a GoFundMe to help fund her track and field journey. At press time, she has raised over $16,000 towards her goal.

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