Shaquille O’Neal has come under scrutiny for his role in Netflix’s Tiger King. The former NBA star has a cameo in the wild docuseries about a polyamorous zookeeper—Joe Exotic—currently serving time for murder-for-hire, but now he’s trying his best to distance himself from controversy.
Known as a tiger aficionado, O’Neal appears in the first episode of Tiger King touring Joe Exotic’s zoo and taking pictures with the animals. The series also shows a clip of the basketball star talking about his visit on TNT, telling the audience, “Yesterday, on my day off, I went to the G.W. Zoo — shoutout to Exotic Joe—I got two more tigers.”
Now, O’Neal is saying that he is “not friends” with Joe Exotic and “had no idea any of that stuff was going on” at the zoo.
“Listen, people are going to make their own opinions, but, again, I was just a visitor. I met this guy—not my friend. Don’t know him,” O’Neal said of Exotic on the most recent episode of his podcast “The Big Podcast With Shaq.”
“Never had any business dealings with him, and I had no idea any of that stuff was going on.”
“I don’t harm tigers. I love tigers. I love white tigers,” O’Neal said. “We go “We go in [Exotic’s zoo] and it’s a beautiful place,” he continued. “And the character that was there was Exotic Joe. We’re there, and I dropped some donations for the tigers’ foods and all that. We take pictures with tigers.”
Given the extremely depressing content of the documentary regarding the treatment and sale of captured tigers, people are angry that O’Neal had anything to do with purchasing tigers—especially from Joe Exotic, who was convicted of animal abuse.
But O’Neal explained that he stopped visiting the zoo after learning about Joe Exotic’s legal issues: “Then we go back another time and we found out that he’s involved with all the stuff, and then, actually, I stopped going.”
O’Neal also wanted to clear up the notion that he’s keeping tigers as personal pets. (According to NBC, the tigers live in a farm in Jacksonville, Florida.)
“Do I own tigers personally at my house?” O’Neal said. “No.”