Shareef O’Neal Cried for 45 Minutes Hugging Mother Shaunie Henderson After Learning About Life-Changing News During Shaq’s Absence

Shaunie Henderson‘s memoir titled Undefeated: Changing the Rules and Winning on My Own Terms has been the talk of the town since its release. The book currently has 4.5 stars on Amazon, as it talks about the struggles, heartbreaks, losses, and triumphs of Henderson. It describes her relationship with the Los Angeles Lakers legend. Henderson wrote, “Looking back, I don’t know that I was ever really in love with the man, but I was in love with the idea of being married to the man I had a family with.” 

Shaquille O’Neal’s ex-wife’s statement caused quite an uproar amongst the fans concerning their seven-year-long marriage. O’Neal took to Instagram and wrote ” I understand… I wouldn’t have been in love with me either. Wishing you all the best…❤️ All love, Shaq,” and captioned it with “trust me i get it.” The former couple seem to understand each other and have been co-parenting their children since the divorce. And one heartfelt moment that Henderson shared was about Shareef O’Neal’s incident in 2018.

The UCLA athletic trainer called her and told her to meet them at the earliest. After arriving Shareef and Henderson had no clue about the situation. They could only see multiple doctors in the conference room. Shaq joined them via Facetime.

They revealed that Shareef had a congenital heart defect. The good news was, that this was a treatable condition, but the bad news was it would require open-heart surgery to fix it. After hearing about the situation Shareef and his mom left the room and couldn’t even reach their car. They sat on a bench and, “I held my boy and let him cry, and I cried with him for what felt like forty-five minutes,” Henderson revealed.

Shaq and Shaunie empower Shareef to make his decision

The executive producer in her book also spoke about the decision that was not made by Shaq and her. Explaining to him how choosing not to get the operation would mean he had to live with the condition. Meaning he wouldn’t be able to be an athlete anymore. Plus he would also have to monitor his heart rate for the rest of his life. Or, he could get the surgery and accept the risks involved, which ranged from infection to death.

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Ultimately Shareef decided to have the surgery and came out stronger after the operation.