NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal cracked up his Inside the NBA colleagues on Monday night as he rushed to the bathroom on live TV.
O’Neal, host Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith were in the studio for TNT as the network broadcasted the Knicks-Pistons and Nuggets-Clippers playoff games.
But O’Neal interrupted Smith’s analysis of Kawhi Leonard at one point as he got out of his seat and began speed-walking to the bathroom.
Smith asked O’Neal, ‘You alright, big fella?,’ before the four-time champion urged his co-workers to keep their conversation going.
But the unplanned moment led to a couple of minutes of jokes from the Inside crew, with Smith saying: ‘It’s that olive oil you been drinking.’
‘Hey, take some matches with you,’ Barkley cracked.
Shaquille O’Neal rushed off of set to use the bathroom during live TV on Monday night
O’Neal soon returned to his seat as his colleagues poked fun at the interruption
Smith, 60, also poked fun at the 53-year-old O’Neal’s age.
‘After 40, you can’t hold it no more,’ he joked.
Johnson, the host of Inside since 1990 called the moment a ‘first’ before O’Neal’s colleagues discussed how he was drinking olive oil for health purposes to ‘clean his gut.’
The broadcast then hilariously showed a slow-motion replay of O’Neal’s walk to the restroom before the former Lakers star explained for himself what had happened.
‘That was number one, drinking that water,’ O’Neal said as he got back to his seat.
He also blamed his interruption on Barkley ‘talking so damn much’ and not letting the show get to a commercial break.
‘Sorry about that, America,’ O’Neal eventually said.
It’s been an eventful couple of days on-air for O’Neal, as a night before, he mistakenly said former player Billy Ray Bates was dead.
The show was discussing the players who scored the most ever points off the bench in their playoffs debuts when O’Neal claimed that Bates, 68, had previously passed away.
The following day, Johnson began the show by issuing an on-air apology to the former shooting guard and his family.
