I have to admit—I do not miss being the editor in chief of a sports celebrity magazine one bit. Seriously, it’s a bona fide pain in the ass tracking down a handful of athletes, coaches, owners, musicians, actors and pop culture headliner every month. 600 stories or so was plenty.
But—what I get to do now for a fantastic, upscale national magazine calledJetset is a blast. I write the cover stories for them. The Jan/Feb issue is out now. So, the plan for the current issue was to get an exclusive interview with NBA global icon Shaquille O’Neal, the third cover story I’ve personally done on him. I tracked the big fella down, and my plan was to see how he rolls in the air. Essentially—I set out to learn about what kind of private jets he flies on. How often. If his kids have ever had the indignity of going through TSA at a normal airport and getting on a commercial flight.
Basically—get inside the life of one of the world’s biggest, literally and figuratively, athletes.
So here’s the deal— he actually squeezes his gigantic framed into a first class seat with us normal humans every now and than. Does that shock you? I have to admit, I was blown away to hear Shaq has to deal with the indignities and incredible inconveniences of modern-day air travel.
How funny would that be? One of the greatest ballers of all time going through security, having to take off his 4 NBA championship rings and putting them on the conveyor belt while he removes the car keys to his Maybach.
Now don’t get me wrong, most of the time he’s buzzing around the globe on the Cleveland Cavaliers custom charter, or a Gulfstream, Hawker or Lear, courtesy of some major company paying Shaq to be in a commercial. But still- the thought of Shaq having to turn off his phone and cutting a convo with Lebron James short because the plane was getting ready for takeoff is hilarious.
Check out the story here— see what else he told me.