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Shaquille O’Neal was the host of the NBA Awards, which aired last night. You can see the opener here. He rapped with some backup dancers behind him and that was fun, but some of his jokes fell flat. In an interview with Hoda Kotb which aired on The Today Show, Shaq revealed his social media strategy. He said he used to show off his stuff more but then his mom told him not to do that. Shaq described his mom and her advice to him and it was sweet.
His social media strategy
When I send out tweets it’s 60% to make you laugh, 30% to inspire you and 10% to promote what I’m selling. I came up with that formula because when I first started doing twitter I didn’t really understand social media. I was kinda in showoff mode. ‘Look at my house, look at my boat.’ My mom called me and she said ‘Stop showing off. Be humble. You should use that to inspire people.’Does your mom keep you in check?
She’s always been right, she’s never been wrong. She’s never gave me the wrong information. She’s so calm about her approach. I can be upset about certain things and she’d [stay] so calm and it always worked out.His mom’s advice
Don’t forget where you come from and make people remember your name. Whenever I do or say something I imagine her in front of the TV watching. Every man should love and respect the women first of all and they should definitely respect and love their mother.
[From The Today Show]
I loved that interview! Shaq has 14 million followers on Twitter, and I followed him a while ago but he doesn’t come up in my feed much as I don’t interact with his tweets. I will check him out more now. I couldn’t find any braggy tweets he made, but I did find some Instagram posts that his mom might have noticed. He was posting stuff like that last year. That was so nice the way he described his mom and what she means to him. I’m like that with my mom too, I take her advice. Sometimes it’s hard to hear but I definitely take it.
Here’s that interview:
Shaq with his sons at the NBA Awards:
photos credit: WENN, Getty and via Instagram
First, his sons are their mother’s son. Look exactly like her.
Also, this is the not he first time he has said things like this about his mother. He has talked about how she kept her job when he signed his first big contract and he wanted her to retire and that she told him to cut the big spending out on her (cars, homes, etc) and she and his stepfather kept all his awards in their garage for awhile to remind him to keep going forward.
I had to Google their mother, but wow. Her genes are strong. They made some gorgeous kids.
Shaq seems like such a fun person to be around, no judgment just good times. Love him!
One of the things that surprises me about him is how self deprecating he is. I honestly never expected that from him.
Haha i love his mom!!
Good moms are never wrong.
Met him years ago at work (he sat on our national nonprofit board) and he was great. We had several well known people on the board and for most we would get the memo the famous person would be in the office and we were to not engage, stay in our offices until given the all clear, etc. Shaq always wanted to visit with staff, would randomly pop into offices/cubes, do group/solo pics, etc. And holy, the man is huge (tall and solidly built)! He gave us a set of his shoes to auction off and they were almost as long as my legs!
I love hearing things like this. Good for him.
His sons look kinda short next to him; but I just looked it up and one of them is 6’9”!!! Oh my god! Ha ha ha ha! Only next to Shaq could a 6’9” kid look short!!!
I love Shaq so much. He does those General insurance commercials just because he used to have their insurance (I mean they pay him, but that’s why he decided to do it). He has such a big heart and good sense of humor. Bet he makes his mom proud!
He was a class act when he was in LA. I was sorry to see him go. Lakers did him dirty.
Kevin Hart and about 90% of the rappers on IG need to take this advice. I see their posts and I’m like “Um are you begging people to rob you?”
He and his mom are an amazing team 💖
I just commented on another post that professional athletes are all dogs with eh few exceptions. Shaq is one of the few exceptions. Most of his “boasting” Instagram posts are more silly than anything. He’s a genuinely good dude.