Shaq once dropped $70,000 at Walmart on a wild shopping spree after being traded
There’s nothing small about NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal. He’s a big man with a big personality, big talent and a big heart.
He’s also a huge spender, having apparently dropped big bucks once during a shopping spree at a Phoenix-area Walmart.
“I have the highest purchase in Walmart history. The CEO will confirm that,” O’Neal told corespondent Bernard Goldberg in a recent feature on HBO’s “Real Sports.”
“I spent about $70,000 in Walmart, in one night,” he said.
“I spent so much, American Express thought my credit card was stolen,” O’Neal added. “True story.”
The shopping spree occurred near the tail end of his career in February 2008, after he got traded from the Miami Heat to the Phoenix Suns.
“And I’m very impatient, so they’ve already got the apartment set up, but I ain’t got nothin’. I ain’t got no towels. I ain’t got no pots and pans. I ain’t got no TVs,” he said. “I’m Walmart’s biggest customer, and they know it.”
O’Neal claims he was looking to buy everything one would need to fill up an apartment, including socks, furniture, kitchen supplies and electronics.
“I get to the cash register and I click it, and it says ‘declined,’” O’Neal recalled.
“And I’m like, ‘Declined?’ Wipe (the card) off.”
But once again, the card was declined.
“(The) security team from American Express called me and said, ‘Hey, man, somebody stole your credit card. They’re at Walmart,’” the Hall of Famer said. “I said, ‘No, sir. That’s me.”
“The guy goes, ‘What the (expletive) are you buying (at Walmart)?’”
Eventually, the card was reactivated, and O’Neal was able to purchase his $70,000 worth of Walmart goods.
The kicker is, he wasn’t even in Phoenix that long. In June 2009, O’Neal was traded to Cleveland for a short stint with LeBron James and the Cavaliers. Then, in August 2010, he moved to Boston to play with the Celtics before retiring.
That’s three moves in 2 years. It almost makes you wonder if he had similar shopping sprees in Cleveland and Boston.
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