Shaquille O’Neal has spent a lot of time in front of the camera.
He has never spoken about his divorce from ex-wife Shaunie Nelson in 2011.
“I was bad. She was amazing.” he said on “The Pivot Podcast” on Tuesday.
Co-host Channing Crowder had told the 7-foot-1 four-time NBA champion, “With the divorce, you had controlled your life forever. You couldn’t control that.”
“No, I couldn’t,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal first filed for divorce in 2007 but the couple reconciled and the application was withdrawn. Two years later, Nelson filed for divorce and was completed in 2011.
“It was all me”, the basketball hall of fame saying. “We don’t need to talk about what she was doing, but I wasn’t protecting her and protecting those votes. Sometimes you live that double life and you get caught. I’m not going to say it was her. It was all me.”
O’Neal, who serves as an analyst on the “Inside the NBA” studio show, continued to blame himself.
“She did exactly what she was supposed to do,” he said. “Take care of the children. Take care of the house. Take care of the corporate stuff. She was all me.”
Nelson and O’Neal married in 2002 and had four children together. (O’Neal has a daughter with Arnetta Yardbourgh. He is also the father of Nelson’s son from a previous relationship.) O’Neal had previously revealed his feelings about his relationships and his family in his 2011 book “Shaq Uncut: My Story” with Jackie Mac Mullan.
“The best feeling for me was coming home and hearing five or six different voices,” he said on the podcast. “It doesn’t matter if I miss 15 free throws and we lose. They don’t care about that.”
“Sometimes when you make a lot of mistakes like that, you can’t really recover from it. But as I get older and obsess over situations, I can honestly say it was all me.”
O’Neal admitted to being “greedy.”
“I had the perfect situation,” he said. “The wife was finer than a cup. She kept giving me babies. Still finer than a cup. She had it all. I don’t make excuses. I know I was wrong. When I didn’t have that, I don’t like to use the d-word because I don’t really know what it is, I was lost. 76,000 square foot house for yourself. He lost. Without children. Go to the gym, no one is playing. Go to his room, there is no one. You start to feel it.”
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Once O’Neal recovered, he said, he realized he wanted to protect and provide for his family, including the mother of his children.
“I may not be a husband, but I will always be a father… I have two, I don’t like to use the term ‘baby mom’, I have two wonderful women who have given me beautiful children. I have to protect and I have to provide and I have to love them forever. That’s why I have to work so hard. I don’t work for myself. I have everything. I have to work for them. work for my six babies.”
On the court, O’Neal is one of the all-time greats. Coming from the state of Louisiana, he began his career with the Orlando Magic (1992-96), won three championships with Kobe Bryant with the Los Angeles Lakers (1996-2004) and ended his best moment with another ring in the Miami Heat. (2004). -08).
He retired in 2011 as a 15-time All-Star. His ferocious dunks shattered boards and manhandled opponents as he amassed four NBA titles, three Finals MVPs and one regular-season MVP.
He had a larger than life personality that extended off the court to the big screen as an actor.
“The Pivot Pod” is hosted by Channing, a former NFL linebacker; Ryan Clark, former NFL defensive back and ESPN analyst; and Fred Taylor, the former running back who starred for the Jacksonville Jaguars and ended his career with the New England Patriots.
O’Neal lumped his relationship with Nelson into his regrets, along with the way things fell apart with former teammates Penny Hardaway (with the Magic) and the late Kobe Bryant (with the Lakers).
O’Neal said he was open to talking about divorces, but has rarely been asked or talked about by the media on his own show.
“I never talk about this,” O’Neal said. “I’m glad you asked because I don’t mind talking about this.”
Follow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca.
Reference-www.usatoday.com