NBA icon Shaquille O’Neal is addressing the viral rumor claiming he slid into Sabrina Carpenter’s DMs.
“First of all, ladies, the diesel got way more game than that,” O’Neal, 54, said on the Friday, March 20, episode of his “Big Podcast” show, reading aloud the fake flirty messages. “I’m just saying.”
Social media images surfaced earlier this month featuring a flurry of NSFW messages sent to Carpenter, 26, from an Instagram account seemingly belonging to O’Neal.
“Damn, baby, I would keep your farts in a cologne bottle and spray it on me every day,” the retired basketball star read aloud, quoting the alleged messages. “Just jokes, I’m Shaq. What’s your name, baby? And Sabrina says, ‘I know who you are. You’re way too famous to be sending messages like that.’”
O’Neal allegedly replied, “I can’t be horny and want some of that snow bunny kitty for no reason. You can’t handle big diesel anyway.”
O’Neal subsequently acknowledged that a photoshopped image of himself was added to the seemingly AI-created message.
O’Neal’s podcast guest, Jim Jones, further noted that social media is a “dangerous place.”
“It’s so crazy what people are spending their energy and time on,” Jones, 49, said. “I would think they would have better things to do.”
According to O’Neal, “youngsters” seem to “be [all] about the algorithm and going viral.”
“Social media is a great way for you to gain business and for you to market and promote your business,” Jones said. “That’s what I use it for. Everyone has their own elaborate ways and schemes that they use social media platforms. I use it for music, I use it for my content [and] I use it for pretty much everything I have going on.”
Jones also stated that “social media is there for entertainment.”
“Whatever’s going on today, it’s not going to last past three days,” he said. “If you feel that social media is working against you, it’s never working against you. You’ve got to figure out how to make it work for you even when it is working against you ‘cause now you have millions of eyes on you.”
Neither O’Neal nor Carpenter have further addressed the fake text conversation.
O’Neal, for his part, was previously married to Shaunie Wilson from 2002 to 2011. O’Neal and Wilson, share five children. (O’Neal is also father to daughter Taahirah from a previous relationship with Arnetta Yardbourgh.)
In the years since his divorce, O’Neal has sparked dating rumors with a number of famous faces. After he was spotted with OnlyFans creator Sophie Rain on her 21st birthday, the NBA alum denied claims of a budding romance.
“I don’t [date] that young but I will date your mom and give u a brother,” he wrote via Instagram comment in October 2025 after a social media user questioned the pair’s large age gap.
Rain also shut down the speculation in a statement shared with Us Weekly.
“He reached out to me after and was like damn, we are famous, haha, I don’t know why people think we are dating,” Rain exclusively told Us. “People are running with a wild story, but Shaq was nothing but respectful. It was my 21st birthday and he made it unforgettable. I laughed when I saw the rumors. Shaq’s response says it all. He was never trying to be anything more than supportive and fun.”
As for Carpenter, she’s been single since December 2024, when she and actor Barry Keoghan called it quits after nearly one year of dating.
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