Is Shaq OK?

Shaquille O'Neal has some advice: "If you are going to retire, accept it. Enjoy your family," he recently said on The Big Podcast With Shaq. "I made a lot of dumb mistakes to where I lost my family. I don't have anybody."

His statement, directed at retiring NFL star Jason Kelce, raised concern online. "What happened with Shaq?" asked one Reddit user in a popular thread. "I thought he was [a] super nice guy. Why is he all alone?"

The former four-time NBA champion has developed several personas since the Orlando Magic drafted him in 1992. On the court, he was a giant. Online, he became something different. Endless Thread breaks down the many sides of Shaq to answer the question, Is he OK?

Show notes:

This content was originally created for audio. The transcript has been edited from our original script for clarity. Heads up that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.

Ben Brock Johnson: Amory Sivertson, we are here today, dearly beloved.

Amory Sivertson: So formal. My last name and everything.

Ben: We're here today to embark on a strange journey. And I hope that it will be an enjoyable one. But it's also kind of a sad one, I think.

Amory: I was just gonna say you had me at "strange journey," and then it turned sad so fast.

Ben: Well, it's not all sad. Some of it is wholesome. Some of it is strange. Some of it is a little not-safe-for-work. And all of it is about Shaquille O'Neal.

Amory: I'm ready. Until you said Shaquille O'Neal, I was like, All of this just sounds like an Endless Thread episode.

Ben: Yeah.

Amory: And now we're into sports territory, and I'm a little nervous. But OK.

Ben: What's your Shaq zone? Are you aware of Shaq?

Amory: I've been aware of Shaq all my life, but he probably has a different time zone way up there. He has a different climate. I just, I have no relation to Shaq other than he, you know — I actually do have a thought about Shaq, and that is that I think his eyes are a little sad.

Ben: I think that's true. And I think that's actually, in a way, that's where we should start. Which is a Reddit post, a recent Reddit post, asking, What's up with Shaq saying he is all alone?

Amory: Oh no.

Ben: Click on this first link for me.

Amory: OK. This is from the Out of the Loop subreddit. "What's up with Shaq saying he's all alone living in his big mansion alone?"

"What happened with Shaq? I thought he was [a] super nice guy. Why is he all alone?"

Ben: This was one of many posts that popped off recently about Shaq living all alone in a 100,000-square-foot house.

Amory: One-hundred-thousand square feet! That is 100 times larger than the area I inhabit.

Ben: OK, so click on this second link.

Amory: Alright. This is from the Black People Twitter subreddit. This is a video, quote tweeted by someone who says, "I really hope Shaq is seeing a therapist. He sounds so regretful, so lonely." Alright, here we go. I'm watching now.

[Shaquille O'Neal: You all going to retire? Accept it. Enjoy your family, brother. I made a lot of dumb mistakes to where I lost my family. I don't have anybody. That's not the case here. So enjoy your beautiful wife, enjoy your beautiful kids. Never dwell on what we had. What we had is what we got. You got the ring. People know who you are. Enjoy it. Because, again, I was, I was an idiot. I've talked about this a long time. I lost my whole family. I'm in a hundred-thousand-square-foot house by myself.]

Amory: I know nothing about Shaq's personal life. What, do you know, do you already know what stupid things he's referring to that he may have done?

Ben: Well, we're gonna get to it. But to really understand, to figure out if Shaq is OK, I want us to go on the journey of Shaq. Not his full history, and certainly not the details of his NBA career, which neither of us know anything about.

Amory: He shot some hoops!

Ben: Shaq is this person who is the exact right age, Amory, to have kind of straddled the pre-internet and the post-internet world of celebrity. I first became aware of Shaq as a player for the Orlando Magic. And what I remember is that Shaq was huge. Like, he's 7-foot-1-inches tall. And that was his whole personality as an NBA player. He was just, he was big and nobody in the NBA was really as big as him. So, I want you to click the next link here.

[(Video of Shaq dunking and breaking the basketball backboard.)]

Ben: Describe what happened.

Amory: Shaq dunks a basket. The whole basket apparatus comes down onto the court. And he narrowly misses having this basket clock him over the head. Oh, god. OK. There's another video. He shoots another basket, but just the basket itself comes down. The board stays up at the back. Oh, man.

Ben: This is not your neighbor's driveway basketball hoop, right? Like, these are legitimate, sturdy hoops. And Shaq was repeatedly and consistently shattering backboards, breaking basketball hoops. He was eviscerating the focus point of the basketball court as an NBA player. So I think that in a very real way, Shaq was, again, unlike anything that professional basketball had ever seen. And that made him pretty legendary pretty quick. That sort of informed his perceived personality and his real personality on the basketball court. He was sort of like a force of nature.

Amory: That's hard.

Ben: I think it is hard. Honestly, I think there was some monsterism in the way that people thought of Shaq, right? But at the same time he becomes this legendary character in basketball in the 90s. And the 1990s was, by many accounts, this sort of golden age of basketball.

Amory: Was he in Space Jam? I know Michael Jordan was the star.

Ben: Yeah, Shaquille O'Neal plays himself in the 1996 film Space Jam.

Amory: Excellent. OK.

Ben: Shaq becomes this superstar. Even still today, there are posts on Reddit about people's all-time NBA fantasy teams. And like, everyone has Shaq on their NBA fantasy team, even though again, it's a long time ago that Shaquille O'Neal played basketball. So I want you to look at this "Shaq is weaponized giant" link.

Amory: OK, the top comment says, "Steve Kerr" — I'm pretty sure he's the head coach of the Golden State Warriors — "has said when Steph" — Steph Curry — "moves on the court he sucks in help defenders everywhere he goes. Shaq did that even off the court! He required every coach to carry an extra TWO bigs on the roster just to try absorb the brutal contact from Shaq's frame. ... Shaq wrecked the entire rotation of every team he played against."

Ben: He's planetary. He has his own gravitational force.

Amory: He has his moons.

Ben: He changes the way that the game is played and the way that rosters are built because of how big and powerful he is.

Amory: Hmm.

Ben: So all of this, of course, contributes to Shaq becoming a superstar in the 90s. He gets a lot of nicknames in the 90s. O'Neal called himself "The Big Aristotle." And "Hobo Master," for his composure and insights during interviews. That's pretty cocky, we could say. He got a lot of nicknames, including "Shaq," also "The Diesel," which, by the way, is his DJ name. And he is currently a DJ.

Amory: I think I did know that one.

Ben: "Shaq Fu," "The Big Daddy," "Superman," "The Big Agave," "The Big Cactus," "The Big Shaqtus"...

Amory: Oh, that's more my speed.

Ben: "The Big Galactus," "Wilt Chambernezee," "The Big Barry Shnickov," "The Real Deal," "The Big Shamrock" — I think that was maybe coined when he played on his last NBA team of all time, which would be the...

Amory: Guessing it's the Celtics?

Ben: The Celtics. "The Big Leprechaun," "Shackavick," and "The Big Conductor." These are the nicknames of Shaq, according to Wikipedia, which, grain of salt. But Shaquille O'Neal becomes this really big deal. And this—

Amory: Big Deal O'Neal.

Ben: Ho ho! Well played, Amory Sivertson! "The Big Deal O'Neal." Oh, man, we should add that.

This is in the 90s, of course. He's on MTV Cribs. He's one of the most memorable episodes, I would say, of MTV Cribs, showing off his Orlando mansion. And it has a giant circular bed that he has made that's custom, and it has a Superman insignia on it. He, by the way, was in the Superman-related movie, Steel, which is about a Black Superman. He also gets incorporated into the NBA Jam video game. Did you ever play that game? Do you remember that?

Amory: What do you think? What do you think? You think I played any video games, and then you think I played a basketball-themed video game?

Ben: Alright, that's fine. I understand.

Amory: BenJo. It's like you don't know me at all.

Ben: All of this is really before the internet pops off in earnest. Or maybe it's around the same time in the 90s. But Shaquille O'Neal on the internet has actually been a pretty different person. And I'm going to tell you about that in just a minute.

[SPONSOR BREAK]

Ben: OK, so Amory, we're talking about Shaquille O'Neal. And so now I want to talk about Shaquille O'Neal on the internet.

If you search for Shaquille O'Neal on Reddit, on the internet, you are going to come across discussion of Shaquille O'Neal in a sort of not-safe-for-work way. So, can you look at this first link? You don't even have to click on it. But you can sort of see what it is.

Amory: OK, well, yes, without clicking on it, I can see that the title of the post is, "How Big Do You Think Shaq's D*** Is?"

Ben: Yes. so Shaq was the first deepfake I ever saw. And what I mean by that is in the 90s there was a photo of Shaq that traveled around the internet that I believe was a photoshopped photo of a porn star, with Shaq's head photoshopped onto that porn star. Because, you know, when you are a celebrity, you're going to get potentially objectified in a lot of different ways.

Amory: Mm-hmm.

Ben: And Shaquille O'Neal, as a very large celebrity, of course, his manhood ends up getting discussed. And I think that's just, I guess it's just part of his internet history. But what's interesting is Shaquille O'Neal's personality on the internet, the way that the internet discusses Shaq, is actually the opposite of this. Most of it. Which is that Shaq on the internet is wholesome. So, let's look at some of the ways in which the internet talks about Shaquille O'Neal today.

[O'Neal: I notice that every time I go to a business meeting, the guys who I'm doing deals with say, Hey, Shaq. How are you doing? And then they would turn away and look at my lawyers and my accountants and all those guys. So I said, Oh, you guys don't think I'm in charge? You guys don't think I understand the lingo? So I went and got my master's. University of Phoenix. University of Phoenix is an online program mostly, but I went to the head officials and said, I don't want to do it online. I want somebody to teach me in the class. And they came back and said, unfortunately, we can't set up a classroom for one guy. You need 15 people. So I paid for 15 of my friends to get their master's degree.]

Amory: Wow, that is, that's a, that's a Shaq fact.

Ben: Yeah. That's kinda cool, right? And by the way, Shaq has his doctorate in education.

Amory: Damn.

Ben: Here's another thing that has kept Shaq in the conversation on the internet for a long time, which is that Shaq is the subject of a Mandela effect.

Amory: That sounds familiar, but I don't remember what the myth was.

Ben: There's a movie that a lot of people on the internet think exists called Shazam.

Amory: Oh, that's right.

Ben: Which supposedly stars the comedian Sinbad. And that movie does not exist. In this movie, Shazam, starring the actor and comedian Sinbad, he plays a genie. But in the real world, there is a movie called Kazam! and that is a movie that stars Shaq

Amory: OK.

Ben: So we could call this large, active, collective, low-key racism of people just like thinking that famous Black people look alike. I don't know exactly where this comes from.

Amory: Oh my god. Come on, people.

Ben: But again, you know, the internet often sort of adds a layer of darkness and edge to celebrity. With Shaq, it's sort of been the opposite. He has become this person that people talk about as being really cool and and heartwarming and wholesome. So take a look at this next one. This Made Me Smile.

Amory: OK, the subject is, "a young fan is escorted away by security after giving shaq a hug, after realising what happened shaq called him back over." OK.

Ben: So there's this like kid who's tiny, you know.

Amory: He's in a LeBron James jersey. Uh huh.

Ben: He's in a LeBron jersey, a Lakers jersey. And he just sneaks, somehow gets past security cause he's so short. And he goes up and hugs Shaq's leg, barely reaching Shaq's knee. Right? This kid comes up and hugs his leg, and, and Shaq's back is turned to him, and then security whisks the kid away. And Shaq realizes what happened, and he's like, No, man, bring that kid back over. And the kid comes back over, and they take a photo together.

Amory: I mean, I think doing anything other than that would have been pretty terrible, but yes, it is. It's always sweet when someone of celebrity is like, Hey man, you're a person, I'm a person.

Ben: There's another really viral story that gets reposted and reposted on Reddit and elsewhere of Shaq seeing a kid looking at a bike in Walmart and basically buying that bike for the kid. But it's from a documentary TV show. Like a web series, I think, maybe. So whether you believe it's truly wholesome or truly kind or truly impressive, and maybe it's not, the way that the internet discusses this is that, wow, Shaq's such a good guy.

Amory: What's also interesting about this little kid though is because he's wearing a LeBron James jersey and he is so very small. This is not a kid who grew up watching Shaq play. So there's something to be said about that too and the internet perpetuating the majesty of Shaq. That's a good word for him. The majesty.

Ben: You're Shaqesty. That's, we can add that.

Amory: His Shaqesty. I like that. It's not, it's not perfect, but it's, it's good enough. OK. Now I'm supposed to watch the next one.

Ben: Yeah.

[O'Neal: I got to McDonald's, I order food for me and my fat friends, and the kids bring it out. I'll give them a $200 tip. I'm not about to go in there and cook it and do it. You doing it for me? Appreciate you, homie. Thank you. That's what we need more in this world. We've got too much, I got this, I got that. Nah, that ain't, that ain't me. So when you see Shaq, you're going to see him by himself. He ain't going to be with no entourage. He's not going to be disrespectful. He ain't going to be throwing people around. When I go to a restaurant with my boys, they're amazed I don't skip the line. Hey man, go to the front. No man. I'm not skipping that lady. I can't do it. I know I'm Shaq and I could eat free. I just. I can't do it. Because remember these people right here make this world go round. Not me. But it's my job to entertain them. And then when they pay. That's how I get paid. So, it's all a certain ecosystem that can never be broken. A lot of people break it. So when you turn your back on them, then they get all sour and get all sad, but you got to protect the people that make you.]

Amory: I am always really shocked when I hear stories of what famous people think they can do and are owed and should be allowed to do. And so that, that really hits. We need more celebrities taking the Shaq approach of just, you and I have different jobs, and I'm not better than you.

Ben: Yeah, and I think Shaq does seem to embody that. I mean, look, he's like, you know, he is talking about himself there and bragging about himself giving a $200 tip to somebody who works at McDonald's. And there are, there are probably ways in which Shaq could contribute to society that are better than that. Right? But at the same time, you see him doing this kind of, like, self reflection about, like, what his place is in the world and how to act right and how not to act right.

Amory: So that all makes sense, but we started this with him talking about being alone and losing his whole family because of stupid things that he had done. He says I was an idiot. There must be something not wholesome.

Ben: You know, the story behind Shaq living alone in a mansion is that, you know, he had a very acrimonious divorce from his wife. Depending on where you get your news sources, he cheated on his wife repeatedly. She ended up supposedly also cheating on him. And this basically, like, exploded their family. This is a quote from one of the articles, from Shaq: "When I lost those ... I was all the way down. Sometimes I'm still all the way down. Especially when I was in my house in Orlando, which is 70,000 square feet" — his house has apparently gotten bigger in Orlando — "in there by myself. Nobody. Like I built a house for the kids — gym, game room, pool house, guest house for the mom, and all that. When I lost all that by being stupid, it killed me."

Amory: He's really not in touch at all with his, with his children as a result of this divorce?

Ben: The divorce happened in 2011, and in 2022, Shaq talked about how he missed a lot of milestones with their kids, but that they've reconnected. So, he did, as he described it, return to having the privilege of receiving joy. But he's said that if he didn't reconnect with his kids, he'd have never found joy again. And this is not an unfamiliar experience for celebrities. So like, maybe he's both things or he's neither thing, right? Like, he is not what the pre-internet sort of celebrity machine made him out to be. He is more thoughtful and reflective than that as a full-fledged adult. But he's also not the perfectly wholesome, kind, just like, only good in the world person that the internet seems to want him out to be.

Amory: The internet has made us, it's given us so much more access to the celebrities that we are interested in. And so it's so much easier to watch them, it's so much easier to catch them in the act of doing something really beautiful. And it's so much easier to catch them in the act of doing something that we might take issue with. And the mistake that we all make is that we think that we can put people in this like, Oh yeah, Shaq's a good guy. Or like, Shaq's a bad guy. We do kind of define a person by one thing that they've done, and they should absolutely be held accountable for those actions. But when we do that, we not only throw out anything good that they may have done, but we throw out the chance for them to redeem themselves or to show the other sides of themselves.

So with Shaq just kind of owning it all — and maybe there's more that he hasn't owned, so I don't want to say, "Great job, Shaq," necessarily, but — with him at least owning some of the things that he's not proud of, he has allowed himself to be more multidimensional in a way that I hope we can all be, that celebrities will allow themselves to be online, and that we will all come to celebrities online knowing that they're a whole person that shouldn't be put on a pedestal, neither should they be dragged down for a mistake that they're owning.

Ben: So Shaq has a phone number on his Instagram that says, You can text me if you want to text me.

Amory: Oh, hell yeah.

Ben: So I think we should text Shaq and see if he texts us back. Which of his many nicknames should we use? "Hey, Shaq"? Should we keep it simple and just say "Hey, Shaq"?

Amory: Yeah, we should tell him that we have a new nickname for him too, like, "Hey Shaq, we know you're a man of many nicknames. We have a new one we'd like to propose."

Ben: OK, what is it?

Amory: Well, I actually, I feel like we should maybe amend it, because before we said Big Deal O'Neal, but now we should say The Real Deal O'Neil.

Ben: OK, so, "Hey Shaq, it's Ben and Amory. From the podcast, Endless Thread..."

Amory: Phew, you got that part right.

Ben: "...we just made an episode about your life..."

Amory: That sounds very grand. I think it's more like, "The internet has captured some of your multitudes."

Ben: Yes, yes, yes, yes. OK. "Hey Shaq, it's Ben and Amory from the podcast Endless Thread. Our show is about our online and offline selves. We just made an episode about you and your reputation on the internet and how the internet has captured more of your multitudes as a person than the pre-internet celebrity media machine allowed you to be."

Amory: What's our ask for him? Is he OK? That's our ask.

Ben: "We also want to know: Are you doing OK? We heard you were lonely."

Amory: Yeah, "we'd love to talk and hear whatever's on your mind and what you might want people to know about you."

Ben: "Also, we know you're a man of many nicknames and we have a new one we'd like to propose. The Real Deal O'Neal. You're maybe internet pals."

Amory: I'd say "your maybe future pals."

Ben: "Future pals, Amory and Ben." OK. Alright. I'm gonna hit send.

Amory: No "thank you."

Ben: OK, "thank you." Thanks.

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston.

This episode was produced by me and Dean Russell, it was co-hosted by me and Amory Sivertson. Sound designed by Emily Jankowski.

If you want to hear more of that deep, deep voice of The Real Deal O'Neal, check out The Big Podcast With Shaq on YouTube. And Shaq, text us back man. Come on the show. Let's talk about our feelings! Dear listeners, including Shaq, send us your Shaq thoughts and memories: Endless Thread at WBUR dot org.

Big shouts this week to Heather D. in Ohio, who probably has some great nicknames as well. She heard us ask for sousaphone shots in our Music Man episode and sent us a whole bevy of photos of her son Matty Travis, who rocks the tuba and the sousaphone. And even the contrabass bugle. The kid's got pipes.

And wait, is this literally another woman named Heather emailing us sousaphone shots? It's not ChatGPT. It is Heather Doucette and her son Charlie in the marching band in Connecticut. What is going on!? It's real. We have the photos to prove it. Heathers, you should get together. And your sons should form a sousaphone band, probably. Let us know if you want us to make that happen.

Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between online communities and a basketball backboard smashed with a sousaphone by Shaq.

We'll see ya next week!