Shaquille O’Neal started a battle of showing off with Penny Hardaway and bought a Ferrari in response to him.
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Shaquille O’Neal rolls like a king. Born in a financially challenged house. the NBA legend quite literally built a fortune from nothing.
Though he made some big bucks playing professionally, most of his $400 million net worth was made through his investments. But like all people who get a lot of money really early in life, O’Neal was a spendthrift show off in his time with Orlando Magic.
He once famously went on a spending rampage in a friendly match of ‘who was more flashy’ with Penny Hardaway.
Shaquille O’Neal cut his Ferrari into two
In his book ‘Shaq Uncut’, Diesel revealed how he loved spending money. But what he loved, even more, was one-upping everyone around him.
He wanted to be the biggest star in town. And being the biggest star meant owning the best cars and living in the biggest house with an amazing pool.
Shq wrote: “Penny was a lot of fun. He wanted to be a star, and he had some grand ideas on how to pull that off. I liked his style. We got involved in this little game of “anything you can buy I can buy better.” It was a competition, but not in a negative way. We were just two young, stupid, rich athletes showing each other up.”
He continued: “It went something like this. Penny would go out and buy a Ferrari, so I had to go out and a buy a nicer car. We were young and cocky, and we all wanted to be The Man in every category. Girls, cars, houses. I figured since I was single and had a lot of money and a lot of responsibility, I had to be The Man on the team.”
Shaq’s Old Ferrari F355 Spider Is For Sale With Big Boy Cabin Space https://t.co/2T6aKXAmn4 pic.twitter.com/15oc88nWmo
— Flyin18T Motorsports (@Flyin18T) December 25, 2020
It’s safe to say that money was no problem for the big guy. And a few mistakes or attempts at showing off to others can be let off the hook. But there are certain things that you just can’t do. Like cutting up your Ferrari in half.
Shaq took showing up Penny Hardaway to the next level
You read that right. In his book, Shaquile O’Neal recalled how he once bought two Ferraris and cut one of them in half. Then superglued it to the other.
Shaq: “I’m a bit of a show-off, so if anyone tried to one-up me, I had to do something outlandish to respond to it. So Penny would come in with a Ferrari, and I’d go out and buy two Ferraris. I’d cut one in half and superglue it together with the other one, and I’d have a Long Ferrari.”
Perhaps this is one of Shaq’s jokes because cutting a Ferrari sounds blasphemous. After all, it cost a whopping $120,000 to buy a Ferrari back in the 90s. But to be fair to O’Neal, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing he’s ever done.
