When you gotta go, you gotta go.
Shaquille O’Neal has gone viral for slipping out during an Inside the NBA segment to take what appeared to be a pit stop at the bathroom.
Sitting alongside fellow moderators Ernie Johnson Jr., Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley, O’Neal quickly gets up mid-segment, shuffling out of Studio J, in a clip shared by NBA on TNT’s social media pages early on Tuesday.
“You alright, big fella?” Barkley asked, as he continued to make his way out.
After O’Neal urged them to “go ahead, keep talking,” Smith teased 7′ 1″ former NBA star, telling him, “”It’s that olive oil you’ve been drinking.”
“Hey, take some matches with you,” Barkley added.
The three ragged on O’Neal in his absence, with Smith joking that he “couldn’t hold it.”
“After 40, you can’t hold it no more,” he quipped.
Johnson Jr. deemed O’Neal’s exit “a first,” asking if his bathroom break was “planned.” Smith then dished on O’Neal’s plans to “clean his gut” by drinking olive oil
“I did not like his gait as he left,” Johnson Jr. quipped. “That was not a typical walk right there.”
Barkley explained that O’Neal “read somewhere” about the benefits of taking “a shot of olive oil” for two weeks, prompting Johnson Jr. to tease that O’Neal is “going to miss a lot of air time” that way.
“Hey listen, I just hope we got enough matches around here,” Barkley joked.
Smith added, “Please turn his mic off, that’s all.” (Luckily for all of us, Shaq listened to this advice.)
A replay of O’Neal’s exit played just ahead of his return, when he said he had been “drinking that water,” and told Barkley to “stop talking so damn much.”
“Finish your point so we can go to break,” he added.
Barkley fired back, “We’ve been waiting on you, fool!”
O’Neal continued, “I’m sitting here like shut the hell up and hurry up. Sorry about that, America.”
Inside the NBA, which currently airs on TNT, will be heading to ESPN and ABC next season as a result of an NBA settlement, per CBS News. According to the outlet, the four co-hosts will stay on the show despite the network switch-up.
Read the full article here
