“I ain’t got no towels. I ain’t got no pots and pans. I ain’t got no TVs.” That was Shaquille O’Neal’s account, in an HBO sports interview reported in March 2018, of the night he walked into a Walmart and ran up a bill of $70,000.
It is his story, told his way, and the details below come from him as relayed by PopCulture.com.
Traded to Phoenix, nothing in the apartment
O’Neal said he was traded from Miami to Phoenix and had little with him. The apartment had been set up for him, he explained, but he owned nothing to put in it. “I’m very impatient,” he said. So he went to Walmart and bought what he needed in one night. Yahoo Sports, as quoted by PopCulture, said the story most likely dates to February 2007, when the Miami Heat traded him to the Phoenix Suns.
The card says no
At the register, the screen read “declined.” “Declined?” he recalled asking. He wiped the card and tried again. Declined again.
Then his phone rang. The American Express security team told him someone had stolen his card and was using it at Walmart. “No sir, that’s me,” O’Neal said he answered. The agent, by his telling, shot back with an expletive-laced question about what he was buying. O’Neal repeated that it was him. The company turned the card back on, he said, and “got a couple of trucks” to carry the haul away.
He also claimed Walmart told him it was the largest single purchase in the company’s history. PopCulture relayed the claim as his, and the report offers no confirmation from Walmart. “I’m Walmart’s biggest customer, and they know it,” he said.
The rest of the interview
O’Neal, then 46, retired from the NBA in 2011 after winning six championships, and entered the Hall of Fame in 2016. He is a co-anchor on “Inside the NBA.” The Walmart tale was a side note in an interview that was mostly about his second career as an entrepreneur and pitchman. “The Shaq brand is all about fun,” he said. “I’m in the fun business.”
He told HBO he makes more as a pitchman than he did as a basketball player, with ads for Gold Bond, Carnival cruises, credit cards and The General auto insurance. PopCulture, citing The Hustle, added that he has investments in Google, Five Guys and 24 Hour Fitness gyms.
