Just over a week out from seeing him in a leading role in the starring-Kyrie Irving-old-guy-still-has-game basketball comedy Uncle Drew, Shaquille O'Neal talked with The Hollywood Reporter. The Big Aristotle is clearly not content to rest on the laurels of Steel and Kazaam.
The piece goes on to detail four upcoming showbiz projects that O'Neal has, including a Facebook Watch reality show called Big Chicken, which is built around the opening of Shaq's first restaurant chain that is set to launch in Vegas this October (and which specializes in fried chicken sandwiches). He also has an "inspirational" Universal Kids Network animated show in the works, which is based around lessons from his youth and also his Little Shaq book series.
On top of those, he also has a pair of scripted TBS comedies in the works, with one being described by O'Neal as "sort of a Rush Hour thing," that will co-star Ken Jeong. O'Neal was reportedly approached by the network after there was an overwhelmingly positive reaction to a collaboration the pair did a few months ago on that Drop the Mic battle rap series they got going.
This one right here:
In the profile, O'Neal touched on a number of topics, including his feud with Kobe Bryant (whom he said he doesn't talk to, though he holds no lingering animosity against him either). O'Neal admitted that he was "a bit jealous" over Bryant's Oscar win for Best Animated Short Film for Dear Basketball. “Jealous of him, he got a 12-pack [of abs]," is how O'Neal put it. "I only got a four-pack. So it was one of those professional jealousies, like, ‘Oh, man, he got the gold.’ ”
If you go and check it out you can see that the theory behind Shaq's still booming post-retirement popularity is attributed to steering clear of controversy and politics. If you have any interest whatsoever, you can go read the whole thing over at THR.
