Shaq Ditches Celebrity Title Saying That Most Are “Jerk-offs”
In a recent interview, Shaquille O’Neal admitted to “denouncing” himself from the celebrity title 30 years ago. Although Shaq is easily
Victoria Liotta
In a recent interview, Shaquille O’Neal admitted to “denouncing” himself from the celebrity title 30 years ago. Although Shaq is easily one of sports most recognized faces, he chooses to look at himself as no different from the next person [who doesn’t have a verification badge on social media.] He admitted to preferring less famous individuals or those who aren’t famous at all when it comes to working with someone and told PEOPLE about his most recent endeavors with The General Insurance.
Shaq Ditching The Celebrity Label
The former NBA player tells PEOPLE, “I denounced myself from being a celebrity thirty years ago because a lot of celebrities are a–holes.” He added that the famous faces have a tendency of being “obnoxious” and are often “rude to people.”
Shaq, 51, says, “I don’t want to be in that category. I’d rather demote myself to being just a regular person before you call me a celebrity and put me in the category of those jerk-offs.”
Shaq extended his thoughts when talking about his work as well. He says, “I don’t like to work with celebrities because celebrities are crazy, so I just like to work with people.”
The basketball star has been the face of The General Insurance for years and most recently worked with a popular face of the internet who he enjoyed getting to know.
Working Person to Person (and Cartoon)
Because what would The General Insurance be without its cartoon mascot next to Shaq? The NBA star became the brand ambassador back in 2016 and has been entertaining TV watchers with commercials ever since.
Most recently, Shaq worked alongside ‘Bad Luck Brian’ for an ad with The General Insurance. He says, “He was a very nice guy.” Adding in, “People are saying ‘internet celebrities,’ but I don’t want to use those terms in this. He was nice, I was nice, and his story is an amazing story, how he became the sensation that he is.”
Bad Luck Brian became popular in January of 2012 when his yearbook photo was posted to Reddit with bad luck captions written as a meme. The first one read, “Takes driving test. Gets first DUI.” However, it was the second post using his photo that put him on the map. It reads. “Farts in class. Sh-ts,” and received over 1,000 upvotes.
His photo became increasingly popular as more users continued to meme it with different bad luck scenarios. Another well-known one reads, “Falls asleep in class. Wet Dream.”
In 2013, a Washington Post article revealed his identity to be Kyle Craven. The outlet shared that it was actually Craven’s friend Ian Davies who started the trend and decided to call it ‘Bad Luck Brian’ because it sounded better than ‘Bad Luck Kyle.’ Craven estimated that he made between $15,000 and $20,000 from licensing fees and merchandise related to the famous meme.