Ad Disclosure
Shaquille O’Neal receives adult diaper freebies following viral on-air moment
Published:
Shaquille O’Neal turned 53 years old last month.
He’s not getting any younger, and those highlight-reel days at LSU and in the NBA were a while ago now. O’Neal is now paid to sit in a studio and give his opinions on all things pro basketball, and the roundball icon has become a staple in recent years on TNT’s Inside the NBA.
Well, it’s now NBA Playoffs time, the stakes are high and there is pressure swirling around the league on a nightly basis. Perhaps all that pressure is what got to the 7-foot-1, 325-pound giant late Monday night at about 1 a.m. ET, while the Inside the NBA crew was in the middle of some important NBA playoff commentary.
Or, perhaps, O’Neal just had to go and, well, when nature calls, nature calls, right? Whatever the case was, O’Neal abruptly left the set while co-hosts Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith were in the middle of talking, and they were clearly taken aback. O’Neal had to use the restroom, and there was no time to waste, even with a national TV audience watching.
Here’s the original moment:
Millions of people were watching, and apparently so was NorthShore Care, which is well known for its “maximum absorbency products.”
“Bathroom emergencies don’t discriminate — yes, even when you’re a 7-1, 4-time NBA champion,” a spokesperson for NorthShore Care told TMZ Sports on Tuesday.
The company said it’s going to ship O’Neal some of its products to make sure this, ahem, problem never happens again on live TV. It might just be the best assist O’Neal has ever gotten in his long basketball life.
RELATED: Stay locked into your favorite Louisiana sports betting app for the top odds all year long.
Naturally, there is more to the story because the TNT guys weren’t going to let O’Neal forget about this incident any time soon. So, on Tuesday night, there was a porta potty that was giant enough to hold O’Neal waiting for him in the studio — you know, just in case there was an unfortunate sequel to Monday night’s unforgettable event.
No doubt viewers will be tuning into TNT on Wednesday night for more playoff action and, of course, to see if anything out of the ordinary takes place in the studio with basketball’s lovable giant.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
