Shaunie Henderson’s memoir was billed as her “truth” and never an expose on her ex-husband, Shaquille O’Neal. Yet the singular line that she was never in love with him stirred a storm. Even after Shaq seemingly acknowledged her feelings, a lot of negativity came Shaunie’s way. Instead of taking it lying down, Shaunie called out all the trolls for twisting her words out of context. She was grateful to be given that opportunity too. And received the stamp of approval from one of her biggest supporters.

Shaunie showed her appreciation to People magazine with an Instagram post, “Thank you @people for another awesome feature. Now this is content with context!” Her Instagram followers hailed her for her honesty and emphasizing that context matters. She tagged her children in the post too.

In the same post, her eldest daughter, Amirah, commented a slew of emojis – from flowers and hearts. She proceeded to reshare it on her Stories with a ‘Best Mom’ sticker. This is essential as many haters targeted Shaunie by saying she disregarded the feelings of Shaq’s children.

Not to be left behind, Shaunie and Shaq’s youngest and freshly-turned 18 daughter, Me’Arah reshared the post on her Stories with a self-explanatory heart emoji and a few early Mother’s Day posts dedicated to Shaunie. Meezy later commented under the original with queen and heart emojis. Shareef and Shaqir shared the post too but without any additions. While social media was divided over Shaunie’s book, their kids have shown genuine love and support not only to her but also to their dad.

The O’Neal kids have their parents’ backs.

Shaq has been publicly supportive of Shaunie’s memoir. But when that line gained traction, O’Neal posted on Instagram, “I understand… I wouldn’t have been in love with me either. wishing you all the best… all love, Shaq.” He even wrote, “Trust me I get it.” Among his six kids, Shareef was under the post commenting, “Love you man! You saved my life.” He was referring to his dad’s support in helping him get through his heart surgery and return to basketball.

This show of support though may have made it worse. Even Shannon Sharpe, who’s getting dissed by Shaq right now in a rap song, defended Shaq against those comments. He specifically said, “That’s the father of your children.” 

Shaunie responded through the People feature that people took her line wildly out of context to spin a different narrative. Her family has been supportive through the negativity and endorsing her “truth.”