“That experience led me to become fiercely independent about my income, my career, and my identity.” Shaunie Henderson wrote this in her 2024 memoir, Undefeated. She got pretty candid about how being dependent on her parents in her childhood and Shaquille O’Neal during their marriage, made her turn a blind eye to the problems. It was easy to ignore all the signs of Shaq’s affairs while everything was taken care of. When she finally walked away, Shaunie had to learn independence while taking care of six kids. It didn’t come easy, but she made herself financially independent. Yet there remain some things she entirely puts on her husband, Keion Henderson.

The $35 million rich media mogul brought back her podcast, The Groow Zone with Keion Henderson this week. Very early into the show, she admits, she can’t handle the division of labour in a relationship. “I’m not good with it. Like, you know that babe, like, you’ll say we got to sit down and talk about – I don’t know – let’s say finances.” And even saying that got a frustrated sigh out of Shaunie.

So she’s not above leaving the unwanted task to her partner. “I’ll be like ‘do we?’ or…” She let that hang long enough for Keion to complete the sentence, “Can you do it?” And yes, he’s been willingly taking on the brunt of this task in their relationship.

Shaunie was honest that during her marriage with Shaq, she was solely responsible for raising their six kids. O’Neal had people to take care of the other household matters, like managers who paid the bills. After their separation, she moved to her parents’ home in Los Angeles. She’d recall then that her mother took care of hers and the kids’ laundry, food, and general needs.

Her memoir was all about her journey to becoming independent after her divorce. “Right then and there I decided that no man would ever define me again, and no man has,” she wrote. Yet in this podcast, Shaunie shows that she doesn’t enjoy home management. Henderson recalled that they were discussing a bill over video time and he asked how they should handle it, “You took your face out of FaceTime and pointed at me.” That was Shaunie dusting off the one task she hated.

She tells him, “I trust you with my life,” which also means she is comfortable leaving the organizing, the ledgers, bills and payments to Keion. Shaunie will depend on modern technology like autopay sometimes but she leaves the rest to her husband. It might sound contradictory to her goal, but this was also part of her growth.

Keion Henderson is okay with Shaunie’s one flaw

Using her savings from the ‘allowance’ – as termed in her book – Shaq gave her, Shaunie grew Basketball Wives and expanded her media empire. But during that time, she had to learn how to run a household. Occasionally, she depended on her eldest sons, Myles and Shareef, for some things.

“I was single for a long time and became totally dependent on only myself. I didn’t have anybody opening my car door and making sure that gas was in my car or that it was washed. Things were done around the house because I either told my sons to do it or did it myself,” she said in an interview during the press tour.

When she met Keion though, she had to unlearn some of the new habits to show she trusted him. She actually said, “I just became real dainty.”

That’s how Shaunie struck a new balance in her second marriage – by letting Keion balance her chequebook.

Stay tuned for more such updates and join us for the exciting second episode of the “Dual Threat Show” as our host BG12 sits down with Georgia Bulldogs star and Mountain West All-Freshman Team Selection, Asia Avinger