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Shaquille O'Neal Once Spent $1 Million In 45 Minutes

Shaquille O'Neal Once Spent $1 Million In 45 Minutes

All on Mercedes.

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

The most I've ever spent on anything that wasn't rent is about £300. And that still took 45 minutes of rumination and navel-gazing before I was prepared to part with that amount of cash.

But I am not basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, who is celebrating his 45th birthday today.

Right before he was drafted as a 20-year-old, he got an endorsement deal of $1 million and managed to spend it in one day.

Yeah, I know.

Credit: PA

"When you're young, you don't have a lot of business savvy," explained Shaquille, who said he didn't know about FICA and sales tax. "I thought I was getting one million straight up! Really, I only got 600,000."

Take a look at his interview where he explains how he blew so much money in a day...

Credit: Graham Bensinger

First it was off to the Mercedes dealership to get some nice wheels. He had always wanted a black Merc and that's what he bought.

"I came home and my dad was like, 'That's nice, where's mine?' and so I told the guy... I want another one... and then I got home and my mum was like, 'That's nice, I don't want a big one, I want a little one'."

Back to the dealer it was! Must have been that guy's lucky day.

His banker, an old family friend, called him up to tell him he needed to check his finances ASAP. Although Shaq thought he was rolling in it, he had spent it way too quickly. "I was $80,000 in the hole!" he admitted, shocked.

His banker told him: "'Son, I watched you play at high school, you're smart and I don't want you to be like all these other athletes'. And thought I got to get a financial adviser."

Shaq met with a lot of shady dealers who promised him the moon, but he didn't trust any of them.

Credit: PA

His financial adviser hasn't been able to stop all Shaq's excess. He used to have a fish tank in his Mercedes and his bodyguard used to replace the fish daily because the beat from the loud music killed them! I didn't realise loud music could kill fish.

"We leave the house at 10:30am, turned the music up and jamming, by the time we get to practice the fish are dead!"

Despite dropping a million in a day, Shaq's networth is around £350 million. During his NBA career, he earned £292.2 million.

I think he can afford to drop a million here and there.

Featured Image Credit: PA