Shaquille O’Neal always had a unique approach to his professional life off the court. While some may know him for his funky fashion choices, Shaq adopted a more corporate sense of styling as he matured with age. Hence, one would always find him showing up in a suit for almost every occasion.
Advertisement
In an interview with GQ on his health and transformation, Shaq detailed his fashion equation and how it relates to his health. “I’d have a nice business suit, with the shirt buttoned down so you could see the top abs. It would be a mixture of fashion and health. My style is business attire to acquire a company,” O’Neal said.
Shaq is a $400,000,000 personality and can be quite picky when it comes to choosing suits. He is not particularly fond of spending thousands of dollars on fashion labels, which he says he and his billionaire friends do not do. However, when he needs to get suited up, he does so in a way that he has to meet former President Obama.
Speaking further, Diesel added, “I don’t wear loud suits anymore ’cause I got a lot of billionaire friends and they don’t spend six, seven thousand on suits and labels—they don’t do it. So it’s like I was going to meet President Obama—I’d have to have a nice clean suit on so my mother would be proud.”
Shaquille O’Neal is also old school in terms of fashion to retain his family values. Being duly attached to his mother, he refrains from dressing oddly, which he notices among his sons and daughters. Shaq believes he still has to represent his family on national television while his mother watched him live every night.
“My son’s a model, and he be wearing some stuff. Sometimes he goes, “This is fashion.” I’m like, “Bro, I’m not wearing suit pants that are two inches too small and no socks.” But I’m older, and my mother still watches TV, so I always have to represent my family.”
Well, perhaps we now know the reason why we never see Shaq without a suit whenever he shows up on national television. Be it on the Inside the NBA show or courtside, Big Aristotle always keeps his dignity and fashion choices intact.
Shaquille O’Neal also had some weirdly questionable outfit choices
The 7’1″ basketball legend Shaq is now synonymous with being suited up, especially when appearing as an analyst for TNT’s Inside the NBA show. He boldly carries the gentle man’s look in the show, an identity he has been trying to establish since his retirement.
However, if we look back at some of Shaq’s outfit choices from his early days, he would have admitted to having worn some of his wild outfits just for attention. Speaking to HuffPost, O’Neal said, “When I had my tux tailor, I used to do a lot of stuff to get attention. So my jackets used to go three inches below my calves. It was a clown look.”
Shaq’s playing career spanned mostly before social media engulfed people’s lives. Being a marketing genius from the get-go, Shaq knew using some hilarious and evolving tricks could always get him viral. Styling himself as a designer alongside his ‘side-roles’ as a businessman, DJ, and former basketball player, Shaq has no regrets for choosing his wild looks.
Aside from choosing wild outfits, Shaq has great business acumen as well. The Big Man earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix and has made some savvy business decisions regarding his investments. One of his earliest investments was in Google, giving him massive returns by the end of the 2010s.
