Bryant, O’Neal clear the air
Bryant and O’Neal discuss their relationship on O’Neal’s The Big Podcast with Shaq. O’Neal and Bryant were teammates on the Lakers from 1996 to 2004, winning titles in 2000, 2001, and 2002. However, a constant feud between the two led to O’Neal’s eventual departure from the team in 2004. O’Neal:
It’s time to clear the air, because I’ve said many times that we were the most enigmatic, controversial, most talked-about, dominant one-two punch. I just want people to know that I don’t hate you, I know you don’t hate me. I called it today a ‘work beef,’ is what we had.
Bryant:
Here’s the thing — what we did, our disagreements, what made those things special is we said them to each other’s face. We didn’t go behind each other’s back and whisper to our teammates about this, that and the other, because that does nothing but create friction and it’s cancerous to the team.
Shaq falls into Christmas tree
Smith pushes fellow analyst O’Neal into the set Christmas tree, during a debate regarding aggressiveness in the NBA on TNT’s Inside the NBA halftime show. O’Neal:
This means war!
Sponsored channels
YouTube announces a program that will pay content creators to create new series for the site. They invest $100 million in the project and recruit celebrities like Madonna, Shaquille O’Neal, and Ashton Kutcher to join the project:
Our goal with this channels expansion, along with the grants and educational programs we’ve launched in the past year, is to bring an even broader range of entertainment to YouTube, giving you more reasons to keep coming back again and again.
The first of these new original channels will appear on YouTube starting next month and will continue over the next year.
Insults Kobe in freestyle
O’Neal performs a freestyle rap in which he insults his old teammate Bryant.
Kobe [expletive], tell me how my ass tastes…I’m a horse. That’s why I’m getting divorced. He said Shaq gave a [woman] a mil. I don’t do that ’cause my name’s Shaquille. I love ’em, I don’t leave ’em. I got a vasectomy, now I can’t breed ’em…You know how I be. Last week Kobe couldn’t do without me.
Despite the insults, O’Neal tells ESPN:
I was freestyling. That’s all. It was all done in fun. Nothing serious whatsoever. That is what MC’s do. They freestyle when called upon. I’m totally cool with Kobe. No issue at all…And by the way, don’t forget, six albums, two platinum, two gold. Anybody who knows me knows I’m a funny freestyler…Please tell everybody don’t make something out of nothing.”
O’Neal, Schwarzenegger, Kissinger invest
Conway meets an L.A.-based agent for O’Neal via a contact at Intel, and convinces O’Neal to invest via the Angel funds. The agent shares an office with a money manager for Schwarzenegger, who also joins the funds. Conway is introduced to Kissinger via an associate of Rosen’s. His son, Danny Conway, describes how Conway maintains his contact list:
The fax machine was the most important thing in our household