Entertainment

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

This image released by the Las Vegas Police Department shows rapper Flavor Flav, also known as William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., in a police booking photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Police Department)

Entertainer Flavor Flav threw his fiancee to the floor twice and grabbed two knives as he chased and threatened to kill her 17-year-old son during an argument Wednesday at their home in Las Vegas, a police report states.

The former rapper, hip-hop and reality TV star, whose legal name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr., cut his finger with one of the knives before police arrived and arrested him about 3:30 a.m., according to the report.

Drayton, 53, was jailed on $23,000 bail pending an initial court appearance Thursday on a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon and a misdemeanour count of battery-domestic violence. He could face up to six years in prison on the assault charge if convicted.

His girlfriend of eight years, Elizabeth Trujillo, 39, told police her earring was ripped out during the fracas, which she said stemmed from an argument over infidelity. Police did not report that she sought medical treatment. The teen wasn't injured.

Attempts to reach Trujullo by telephone were not immediately successful.

Trujillo told police her son intervened after Drayton grabbed her and threw her to the ground. The teen wrestled with Drayton before Drayton grabbed two large knives and chased him through the living room, according to the police report.

The teen told police he ran to his sister's upstairs bedroom, where he said Drayton kicked in the door and threatened him while still holding both knives.

Drayton confirmed to the arresting officer that he scuffled with Trujillo and her son but denied chasing or threatening the teen, the report states.

It was not immediately clear if Drayton had a lawyer.

Drayton, whose public persona includes wearing an oversized clock on his chest, was an original member of the politically and socially militant rap group Public Enemy in the 1980s and '90s.

In recent years he has starred in several reality TV series and lent his name and recipes to short-lived chicken and soul food restaurants in Clinton, Iowa, and Las Vegas.

He has a criminal history that includes arrests and convictions on traffic infractions, a month in jail for assaulting his then-girlfriend in 1991, and three months in prison for shooting at a neighbour in New York in 1993.