NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal disagrees with government-imposed mandates that force people into getting vaccinated against COVID-19, the basketball Hall of Famer said on Thursday.
“Look, I encourage everyone to be safe and take care of your family—I do. But there are still some people that don’t want to take it. And you shouldn’t have to be forced to take something that you don’t want,” O’Neal said in the latest episode of “The Big Podcast with Shaq.”
O’Neal and his co-hosts, Nischelle Turner and Anthony “Spice” Adams, spoke about the topic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates after his co-hosts brought up the story of two New York-based health care workers who were arrested for allegedly forging and selling thousands of COVID-19 vaccine cards.
“Don’t send them to jail,” O’Neal said, prompting Turner, who also works as a reporter for CBS, to question the former NBA player’s response.
“I’m gonna probably get in trouble for this,” O’Neal said—as he started a debate by bringing up a fictional person who works at Entertainment Tonight (ET) and is forced to make the decision between losing his job or getting COVID-19 shot(s).
“Let’s just say … you’re the sound guy at ET, been working there 10 years. That’s all you know. You don’t bother nobody, you come do your work every day,” O’Neal said. “Then you go home and you have your beliefs. Let’s just say ET puts up a new policy: ‘you don’t get the vaccination, you lose your job,’” he added, noting that the problem is making people go against their morals in order to keep their jobs, leading to some individuals getting an uncertified COVID-19 vaccine passport.
“I don’t think people are being forced to take… well there are some, I mean, listen, we have a mandate at CBS,” Turner said, with O’Neal rebutting with: “that’s forced.”
“If the man don’t take it, the man gonna get fired,” O’Neal said, objecting to Turner’s viewpoint that the vaccination is “not forced.”
Turner responded by saying that she believes if a worker doesn’t want to comply with the rules of the company, then they can quit.
“I’m with you on the rules, because I’m a rules guy,” O’Neal said. “But I do feel sympathetic towards people who have to make that kind of decision.”
Turner replied that she doesn’t feel sympathy at all for those who lose their jobs for not getting vaccinated, claiming that the unvaccinated are “putting other people at risk.”
O’Neal’s statements indicate he has changed his previous stance on COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In October 2021, the former NBA star was vocal about Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving refusing to get the shot, later saying that if Irving, who is not vaccinated, was playing on his team—”I’d have to put hands on him.”
“I don’t see how the team could put up with that,” O’Neal said during his podcast earlier this year while commenting on the Brooklyn Nets welcoming back Irving into the fold.
