Shaquille O’Neal’s Mother Says She Always Felt Shaunie Was Not ‘The Right’ Relationship After Their First Meeting
It seems former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal's mother never approved of his ex-wife Shaunie O'Neal to begin with.
O'Neal's mother, Lucielle Harrison, dished the hot take during an episode of 'Sway in the Morning' alongside Steph Curry's mother, Sonya, where she was asked about her experience meeting Shaunie early on in the relationship.
"What was it like when you first met Shaunie? What was that like knowing that my son is about to be married and has this new person in their life?" host of the show, Sway Calloway, 52, asked.
Harrison responded matter-of-factly. "I don't care who he marry or who he gets with. I know my place, and I'm secure in it." The mother of three shared the doubts she had as her intuition told her something may have been off.
"It's hard to see them go into a relationship and somehow you may feel maybe that might not be the right relationship," she explained. "But, you have to step back, and we have to let it happen. I tell a lot of the mothers that we are going to remain their mothers as long as they live... we are not their girlfriends... So, I'm safe in my place."
Shaunie Nelson, now Henderson, released a memoir, 'Undefeated: Changing the Rules and Winning on My Own Terms,' where she detailed that she loved Shaq as the father of her children but didn't love other aspects of their union.
"Looking back, I don't know that I was ever really in love with the man, but I was in love with the idea of being married to the man I had a family with," she wrote, per the text. The 4x NBA champion understood her sentiments, admitting that he wasn't protecting her and wasn't honoring their vows.
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Shaquill O’Neal shares that he was at fault for his divorce from Shaunie O’Neal. Shaq said “I wasn’t protecting her and wasn’t protecting the vows”#shaquilloneal #shaunieoneal pic.twitter.com/DJD1K4FUhn
"She did exactly what she was supposed to do, gave me beautiful kids, took care of the house, took care of the corporate stuff... it was just all me. Sometimes when you make a lot [of] mistakes like that you can't really come back," he said in an interview on 'The Pivot Podcast' in 2022.
O'Neal and Henderson married in December 2002. After seven years of marriage, Henderson filed for divorce in 2009 amid various reports that he had been unfaithful. Their separation was finalized two years later.
Shaunie remarried Pastor Keion Henderson in Anguilla in May 2022.
