When it comes to relatability, Shaquille O’Neal is about as relatable as a celebrity can be. He was raised from rags to riches and has always had a humble mindset towards money and status. Diesel even recently ranted about how he hates celebrity culture because he thinks they’re out of touch with society.
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“Don’t say I’m a celebrity. Y’all celebrities are f*cked up,” O’Neal said. “Y’all a**holes, y’all f*cking stupid. You disrespect people, you sh*t on people. I don’t want to be like that.”
When O’Neal joined Ryan Clark on his podcast, The Pivot, he revealed that he tries to be a model citizen, but not in the way most would expect.
“I always say, I’m not a role model, I’m a real model,” O’Neal professed. “If I make a mistake and you follow me and you see I made a mistake and you tell your kid, ‘Hey, man, I know you like Shaq, but he f*cked up, don’t do that.’ That’s what I like about this social media thing: everyone’s mistakes are amplified.”
Cancel culture has become increasingly prevalent online since the 2010s, when social media exploded in popularity. Now, more than ever, nefarious secrets about celebrities or regular people are being revealed to the world. Some spark massive debates online, while others fall by the wayside. And O’Neal is on board with it all.
But why is he on board as a celebrity who could theoretically get canceled at any moment? Because Shaq sees himself as a regular person, not as a celebrity. He believes he’s simply someone who went after his goals in life by following the rules.
All of O’Neal’s efforts, however, were for one common goal that he never lost sight of.
“I had a higher purpose. My higher purpose was always to buy my mama a new house. That’s it. I used to see my mama work so f*cking hard, bro. And my daddy. And I didn’t have sh*t to show for it,” Shaq said.
Although it wasn’t long before O’Neal could support his mother and father through his NBA contract. He earned over $17 million on his rookie deal with the Orlando Magic, then collected $166 million over the next nine years with the Los Angeles Lakers. In 18 years in the league, Shaq earned just over $286 million.
It all helped O’Neal achieve his higher purpose, as he eventually told his mother, father, and siblings that he would pay for all their needs from then on.
O’Neal Helping Regular People
After O’Neal accomplished his higher purpose and bought his family everything they needed, he didn’t stop there. He’s continued to show random acts of kindness through financial help. Once, he even bought his friend’s mom a home without notice.
“We looking at all these big houses. It’s nice. Stop by this house. He said, ‘What you think about the house right there? That’s crazy. So I just bought that for your mother.’ I said, ‘What you mean?’ He said, ‘Man, she can’t live there. She can’t live where you showed me. She can’t live there no more. You can’t live there either,'” said Shaq’s friend Peter Gunz on the BagFuel Podcast.
It was an act of extraordinary generosity from O’Neal. And it isn’t the only time he’s ever shown a random act of kindness. Shaq has also donated sneakers to kids in need, gifted game systems to surprised kids, and once helped a stranger pay for their phone.
O’Neal is simply a super nice guy who doesn’t want to be seen as a slimy, backstabbing rich person. He loves to give back and plans to keep doing so until he has nothing left to give.
