Ryan Lochte showed off some bling-bling when he won gold in the 400-meter Individual Medley in London on Sunday. His $25, 000 custom red, white and blue diamond-encrusted American flag grill caught the worlds attention! That grill was custom made by Houston’s own rapper Paul Wall and jewelry designer TV Johnny.
“Me and TV Johnny did a grill for him before that he wore at the podium last year,” Wall told MTV RapFix.
“If you Google Ryan Lochte, Google will finish your search entry with ‘grill.’ There was already pictures of him on the Internet with the other grill we made for him, so we didn’t think the American flag grill was going to be as big of a deal as it is,” Wall said, “But I guess since he beat out Michael Phelps in such tremendous fashion and add to that the fact that it’s the Olympics and it was an American flag, it added to all the hype around it. But it’s exciting. Ryan represents a part of American culture. He represents anybody who has ever worn a grill or is a fan of hip-hop. It was a tremendous honor for us to make his grill. It just makes us feel like we’re a part of team USA.”
It features fiery VVS diamonds and special order custom rubies set by hand, costs about $1000 per tooth or about $25k. It took two weeks to complete, since the diamonds are set by hand on an invisible setting.
He has something special for Team USA if they bring home the gold.
“What TV Johnny and I agreed to is this: any member of Team USA that wins a gold medal, we’re gonna make them a free gold grill on the house,” Wall said. “This is our way of supporting Team USA. Anybody that win a gold medal, we gonna give them a free gold grill to commemorate their gold medal. I don’t even know how to reach out to the gold medalists, but we just putting it out there. Anybody that wins a gold medal for Team USA, they are entitled to a free gold grill on us.”
