Shaquille O’Neal has always been a highly competitive man. However, the Diesel was especially brutal during his time in the NBA, getting the better of his opponents in any way possible. And of course, knowing his own ability, he always expected the best out of himself, no matter who he faced. So on the few occasions he didn’t perform very well, Shaq’s mood mirrored sheer anger. And sure enough, as he explained in the HBO docu-series ‘Shaq’, he’d ‘turn into the Hulk’ after every bad game. Speaking of the Hulk, Shaq once campaigned to be in MCU movies and even thretaened to kick Robert Downey Jr.’s a** to prove his worth. Interestingly enough, RDJ does fight Hulk in the MCU movies as Ironman. However, four years after all that happened, Shaq admitted to transforming himself drastically to facilitate the new changes in his life.
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Shaq turned out to be as competitive as he was because of his father, Sergeant Phillip A. Harrison. From a young age, he was taught to be big, dominant, and protect what is his, no matter how aggressive he had to be in doing so. Of course, that comes with side effects of its own, like tearing your own house up after having a bad game. Fortunately for O’Neal, his daughter Taahirah and ex-girlfriend Arnetta Yardbourgh were there to help him out with the pain.
Shaquille O’Neal was able to calm himself down once his first child Taahirah was born
Shaquille O’Neal has never quite been the kind of person who deals with anger very well. However, they say that when you become a parent, something changes inside you. And sure enough, after Taahirah was born, the Big Diesel seemed to undergo a drastic change as well. Here is what he had to say on the matter in the 2022 documentary ‘Shaq’.
“After a bad game, especially if it was my fault, missed my free throws, I’d go crazy. I’d tear the house up. I was the Hulk. As soon as I saw my children’s faces, I could transform. You come home, and they don’t care about any of that. Forty points? It’s ‘Hey, Daddy!’ Two points? ‘Hey, Daddy!’”
At the time, Taahirah’s mother, Arnetta Yardbourgh and Shaq were still together. However, things changed over time and they separated. In the process, there was a battle for custody of Taahirah, a battle the Lakers legend would eventually lose. You can take a look at all the details right here.
Getting back to tearing up houses, Shaquille O’Neal didn’t just do that when he lost NBA games. In fact, as he once revealed, Kobe Bryant was once a major reason why he just couldn’t stop himself from ripping up everything in his not-so-humble abode after Kobe had won his 5th championship.
Shaq campaigned to get into a Marvel movie for a singular purpose
Shaquille O’Neal is no stranger to being put up in a costume or being shrouded with VFX. The ‘Big Aristotle’ played the character of ‘Steel’ and then played a genie in the movie ‘Kazaam’, neither of which were blockbuster hits. Given just how much Shaq loves to delve into random avenues of life, he would go on to state that he would want to be in a Marvel movie for a singular purpose back in 2018.
As mentioned earlier, he wanted to be in the MCU so that he could ‘Kick Robert Downey Jr’s a**’. Unluckily for him, RDJ would depart from the MCU just a year later in 2019 when his character would die in the movie ‘Avengers: Endgame’.
Of course, this wasn’t his singular purpose. He admitted that he wanted to redemption of sorts when it came to being a superhero on the silver screen in comparison to his appearance as ‘Steel’. Seems as though Shaq has 0 problem with crossing franchises as Steel is a DC property and the MCU, as the name suggests, is a Marvel property.
