Having Shaquille O’Neal as a neighbor could be a great deal of fun or a great deal of trouble. One person who can offer some insight into what living next to the Diesel is like is Paula Abdul, who recently revealed why the Los Angeles Lakers legend’s New Year’s parties were terrifying.
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Back in the late 1990s, Abdul, a Laker girl, was in Los Angeles pursuing her career, which was right around when O’Neal got traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. She recalled him coming into her neighborhood to view her house. She told Hudson that he didn’t like it, but when she walked him over to the house next to hers, he was sold.
Abdul admitted that the two became friends, as they were represented by the same business manager at the time. But she quickly realized that being close to Shaq had its downsides. Not that the big fella was a bad person, but there were, let’s say, a few obstacles.
“I didn’t realize that it came with 18 billion cars,” she joked in an interview with Jennifer Hudson, poking fun at the big man’s world-famous car collection. However, that was nothing compared to the parties that Shaq threw, especially on New Year’s Eve.
“He always had these New Year’s Eve parties,” she stated, and recalled the one time she was enjoying the holiday at home in her sweats. “There’s a knock on the door, and there’s Shaq wearing a bright pink three-pieced suit, with little skinny grey pinstripes, with a pink derby hat. He took me over his shoulder kicking and screaming, I’m in my sweats, everyone’s dressed up.”
Abdul then revealed that she would hide from O’Neal before midnight because of a very strange tradition of his. “I knew what happened at midnight. Right before the clock struck midnight, I ran under the dining room table because what he does is, he moons people, and puts his butt on your head. That’s Shaq,” stated the singer, which made the audience laugh and Hudson scoff.
It must be fun to share a story about your world-famous basketball neighbor, loving to moon people. For any other athlete, that might get them canceled. But O’Neal is not just any athlete. Besides, it’s not the first time his prankish antics of pulling out his butt have been documented.
Inside the NBA once pulled up a picture of Shaq mooning someone when he was still a member of the Lakers. The four-time champ joked that it was photoshopped, but couldn’t contain his laughter since he knew it actually wasn’t.
Shaq is the type of guy you can take or leave. After nearly three decades in the spotlight, he remains the same person he was when he first emerged as a superstar with the Orlando Magic. If anything, the Diesel deserves some credit for sticking to his roots, even if those roots include pulling out his a** at inappropriate times.
