After Splurging $9 Million in 1 Day, Shaquille O’Neal’s Spending Spree Once Gave His Credit Card Company a Scare

You know what they say, go big or go home. And Shaquille O’Neal built his entire brand around ‘big.’ The Big Aristotle is sometimes a ‘Big Spendthrift.’ Of course, the multi-millionaire has the capacity to drop money on a whim. But his indulgences are truly history-making – from setting a statistical record at Walmart to even giving the big bank folks a fright.

Shaq is well aware that his spending gets out of hand quite literally. One of his biggest single-day sprees shocked him too.

Shaquille O’Neal enters the Walmart hall of fame

There are some epic Shaquille O’Neal splurging stories. But his 2008 shopping spree is undefeated. That was the year the four-time NBA champion was traded from Miami Heat to the Phoenix Suns. It was also the year he set a personal record. Not in the NBA, but in Walmart. Shaq recalled the story ten years later on The Late Late Show with James Corden and again on NBA on TNT.

“I have the biggest purchase in Walmart history,” the suave giant gloated to his co-guest, Victoria Beckham.

Apparently, O’Neal arrived in Arizona to an empty apartment past midnight. Instead of waiting for someone to furnish it, he zipped off to the nearest Walmart. Back then, the hypermarket titan operated 24×7. Convenient for O’Neal’s late-night binge-shopping.

“Two or three in the morning, I gotta go get four or five TVs, I gotta go get printers, I gotta go get laptops, I gotta go get sheets, towels, underwear, t-shirts.” If you’re wondering how much all this can rack up to at Walmart, it’s a nice rounded sum of $70,000.

Anyone who is friends with their credit card would know, spending that much in a single day raises an alarm at the credit card company.

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“So at the end it was $70,000. So I put my credit card in and it got declined, so I pulled it out.” Shaq proceeds to demonstrate how he cleaned the card by breathing on it and wiping it on his chest before trying again.

“I put it back in and it said declined again. So now I’m saying, ‘well, I know I’m not broke.'” He definitely isn’t. O’Neal’s annual NBA base salary was estimated at $20 million that time. But his spending once made him nearly broke.

Shaq used up his first Lakers paycheck

When O’Neal came to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996, his salary saw a big bump to $10 million, double his Orlando earnings.

His early days in LA involved spending on Rolls Royces and more. He regretted it when he saw he spent $9 million out of his 10.9 million paycheck. “Boy, was I upset with myself. I really was,” he said about his action.

A decade later, he could afford to splurge while changing teams. So when he couldn’t complete his Walmart purchase, he decided to come back later. Until, “The American Expres security called me… ‘hey man, somebody stole your credit card and they spent $70,000 at Walmart.’ I said ‘no, that was me.'” The person on the other line apparently said, “What the h*ll are you buying for $70,000?’ 

The transaction went through after that and O’Neal made his Walmart record.

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