Shaquille O’Neal made an abrupt exit from the ‘Inside the NBA’ set during a live broadcast on Monday evening without giving any reason for his sudden departure. O’Neal, who has dashed off the set before following a mention of rapper Jay-Z that sparked controversy, was involved in the NBA show coverage on Monday as per usual. The show included an analysis of the Los Angeles Clippers’ victory over the Denver Nuggets, which evened their series at 1-1, and also featured an uneasy apology to a past player.
The programme seemed standard until O’Neal unexpectedly stood up mid-discussion about Kawhi Leonard and ran offstage. Charles Barkley immediately questioned him: “You alright big fella?” O’Neal merely instructed, “Go ahead, keep talking, Chuck”.
Barkley, taken aback, queried: “We’re on TV?” To this, O’Neal responded: “I know what we’re doing, go ahead”. With that, he exited screen left while Barkley joked: “It’s all that olive oil you been drinking. Take some matches!”
Fellow presenter Kenny Smith couldn’t resist commenting with a laugh: “He can’t hold it. After 40 you can’t hold it!” Meanwhile, host Ernie Johnson was left puzzled, remarking: “That’s a first! That wasn’t something planned, was it?” Barkley and Smith laughed it off later saying O’Neal had claimed he was consuming olive oil to cleanse his digestive system. The practice of drinking olive oil on an empty stomach is often touted as beneficial for digestion and healing the gut lining.
Smith quipped: “He’s clearing his gut alright!” Barkley elaborated: “He’s been drinking [olive oil]… he read somewhere that if you drink a shot of olive oil…” At this point, Johnson chimed in: “I saw them doing that in the make-up room!” As Barkley continued: “They’ve been doing it, you’ve gotta do it for two weeks!”
It was a chaotic evening for the Inside the NBA crew, who earlier had to issue an apology for mistakenly announcing a former player’s passing. During their on-air discussion, the crew incorrectly stated that former player Billy Ray Bates had died.
When they returned to air, Johnson stated: “We would like to issue a correction and an apology for something that happened last night on ‘Inside the NBA’, we were talking about Billy Ray Bates, who back in 1980 had one of the NBA’s best playoff debuts coming off the bench with 29 points.
“In the course of our discussion, we passed on some bad information that Billy Ray Bates had passed away. While it was inadvertent, it was also inaccurate and insensitive and inexcusable. In short, we screwed up. And we apologize to Billy Ray Bates and his family.”
This article originally appeared on Mirror US