Flavor Flav 'super grateful to be alive' after boulder strikes his car

A rain-loosened boulder in Los Angeles smashed into a car Tuesday driven by Roosevelt-born and Freeport-raised hip-hop star Flavor Flav, leaving him unhurt but damaging his white Audi badly enough that the vehicle was removed by flatbed truck.

"God is good. I came very close to death, but I am super grateful to be alive," Flav, 62, né William Drayton Jr., said in a statement to Newsday.

"He is very fortunate to be alive and realizes it was an extremely close call," his manager told E! News. "It was a boulder approximately 5 to 6 feet in diameter." An unspecified representative told People magazine, "Thank God he survived and is OK, although a bit emotionally shaken up."

TMZ.com was the first to report that while traveling from Las Vegas, where he lives, to Los Angeles, which has suffered severe rains, Flav's car was struck by a boulder coming down a cliffside in the La Tuna Canyon neighborhood. The website described the car as "totaled."

A representative for the rapper told "Entertainment Tonight" on Tuesday that the collision had caused Flav "to briefly lose control of his vehicle, but thankfully, he was able to safely get it to the side of the road," adding that "if Flav had just been a few feet in another direction, the boulder would've killed him."

Photos show Flav in daylight, standing by the driver's side door of the badly damaged car and speaking into a cellphone. One of the car's front right headlights is smashed and the hood and right fender are crumpled.

Flav's management told Newsday Wednesday morning that Flav, a member of the groundbreaking Long Island hip-hop group Public Enemy, was feeling well enough to be on his way to the Burbank studio of "Entertainment Tonight" to discuss the accident. Flav has not commented on social media.

On Dec. 8, Flav's attorneys announced that the rapper, who was charged with domestic violence in Nevada two months earlier, had pleaded no contest to one count of coercion and was fined $640. This was the latest of several brushes with the law over several years.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group Public Enemy was formed by Roosevelt-raised Chuck D (né Carlton Ridenhour) after he and Flav met while both attended Adelphi University in Garden City. Flav went on to star in such reality-TV in shows as "The Surreal Life" and "Flavor of Love."