Shaquille O’Neal gave a strange three word response following an awkward interaction with Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle.
Brundle is pretty well-known for being incredibly thick-skinned when it comes to being brushed off by celebrities while reporting on Formula One events - who can forget the rather toe-curling moment when he met Machine Gun Kelly?
The awkward interview saw Kelly ask Brundle to do his ‘best air guitar’, which he refused, before revealing he ‘learned the piano once’.
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“Let’s do an air piano and air guitar collaboration right now,” MGK said.
The Brit refused again, which prompted Kelly to stomp off, giving the camera a big thumbs down.
Brundle concluded: “Something tells me I won’t be on his Christmas list."
And, of course, there was the time he met Cara Delevingne who appeared to completely snub Brundle’s attempts to chat, despite his insistence that ‘everybody has to talk on the grid’.
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In his most recent celebrity run-in, Brundle met NBA legend O’Neal, who appeared to be doing everything he could to avoid the commentator - no mean feat when you’re over seven-feet tall.
Brundle was reporting from the Las Vegas GP when O’Neal made his way past and headed towards the Red Bull team.
As he strolled past, Brundle attempted to initiate a conversation, asking O’Neal: “Shaq, just a quick word - good to see you on the grid.”
But O’Neal simply continues to walk past, with Brundle commenting: “I don’t think he’s up for it.”
Once past Brundle and his extra-long mic-lead, O’Neal can be seen happily posing for a snap with Christian Horner - who stood himself up on his tiptoes for the shot.
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However, Brundle is clearly no quitter and as O’Neal walks past again he takes his chance, asking the former basketball star: “Sir, thank you for coming to have a chat with us. How are you doing?”
But it seems Shaq is in no mood to chat and - somewhat bizarrely - responds: “Lewis Hamilton, baby.”
Brundle sums the odd interaction up quite succinctly, saying: “OK well, there you go, that’s all you need to say: Lewis Hamilton, baby. That’ll cover it.”
The clip has picked up a fair bit of attention online, with one person writing: “Martin’s grid walks produce some of the funniest interactions ever.”
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A second wrote: “Pure entertainment on the grid lads.”
While others pointed out that it was made all the more awkward by the fact that he named Hamilton despite just having posed with Red Bull.
Claire Reid