NBA icon Shaquille O’Neal has sent fans into a frenzy after a four-letter live TV rant.
The TNT analyst, 52, turned the air blue during Thursday’s NBA game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
O’Neal joined Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and host Ernie Johnson for the TNT halftime show.
Thursday’s edition of Inside the NBA was filmed infront of a live TV audience in San Francisco ahead of All-Star Weekend.
The iconic show is currently in its final season on TNT following a long-running discussion over its future.
Shaq, Barkley and Smith delighted the crowd by doing their traditional dash to the board at the back of the set.
“In the words of Marshawn Lynch, ‘I’m tired as s***, America,” spluttered an out-of-breath Shaq as he returned to the desk.
Johnson appeared to try and interject as the TNT broadcast ran to commercials.
But Shaq’s microphone was still on as the camera cut to a shot of the San Francisco Bay Area.
“We getting fired anyway, Ernie. F*** it,” Shaq was heard saying, to howls of laughter from his co-stars.
Footage of the exchange quickly went viral on X.
“Might as well go out with a bang,” laughed one viewer.
“No way he just said that on national television,” gasped another.
“This is why i watch TNT for the commentary and not the games,” added a third.
“You can say that after 10pm on TNT,” countered a fourth.
Shaq’s TV future is up in the air, with TNT set to lose rights to the NBA from next season.
New rights deal
The NBA signed an 11-year deal with three networks for the league's rights from the 2025-26 season.
And there will be no games on TNT for the first time since the network launched in 1988.
The Walt Disney Company will continue to show the league with 80 regular-season games across ESPN and ABC.
They will also show around 18 playoff games from the first and second round, a Conference Finals series for 10 of the 11 years, and remain the home of the NBA Finals.
NBC will return as an NBA broadcaster for the first time since 2002.
The network will show up to 100 games per season across it’s channels and Peacock streaming service.
It will also be the home of NBA All-Star and show approximately 28 playoff games from the first and second round.
NBC will show one Conference Finals Series for six of the 11 years, rotating with new broadcaster Amazon Prime.
Amazon will show 66 NBA regular-season games including one on Black Friday.
The streaming service is also the home of the latter stages of the NBA Cup and the entire Play-In Tournament.
Prime will also broadcast around one third of the playoff games in the first and second round.
Games will instead be shown by ABC/ESPN, NBC and Prime Video.
In November, it was announced ESPN and ABC had agreed a deal to save the show.
The networks now hold licensing rights for Inside the NBA, which means Shaq and his co-stars will all need to renegotiate their contracts.
But it is not yet certain if the former Los Angeles Laker will remain on the revamped show after it leaves TNT this summer.
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