By Shaquille O’Neal’s account, Michael Jackson didn’t call first. One day he was just standing at the door of Shaq’s house in Orlando.
“He just showed up at the door,” Shaq said on REVOLT’s “Drink Champs” in October 2022. The show is hosted by N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN, and that episode runs almost three hours. The Michael story comes up at about the 46-minute mark.
Shaq had moved to Orlando after the Magic made him the first pick of the 1992 NBA draft, and his house there was built for a 7-foot-1 star. REVOLT noted it had a 6,000-square-foot basketball court. Shaq’s own favorite detail was the furniture. “I had a bed that fits 50 people,” he said.
Michael had a famous home of his own. He’d bought Neverland Ranch in California in 1988, and it had its own animal park, with giraffes and elephants among the animals.
The two men also had music in common. Shaq wasn’t only a basketball star. His first rap album, “Shaq Diesel,” came out in October 1993 and went platinum the next spring, and when Michael put out “HIStory” in June 1995, Shaq had a verse on one of its hardest songs, “2 Bad.”
Now the most famous entertainer on the planet was at the door. Michael came in and took a look around.
Michael turned to him and got to the point. “He said, ‘I want to buy the house,'” Shaq told the hosts.
Most people would hand Michael Jackson just about anything he asked for. Shaq answered in four words. “I was like, ‘It’s not for sale,'” he said.
That’s how Shaq opened the story on the show, all in one line: “MJ showed up at my house and tried to buy my house in Orlando.”
That should’ve settled it. REVOLT, which wrote up the episode the same week, reported that Michael tried to buy the place “not just once, but twice.” The answer didn’t change. Shaq kept the house, and REVOLT reported he didn’t sell it until 2021.
The two houses had one more scene to go. Shaq later went to see Michael at home, and this time he was the one left staring. “Then I went to his house, this dude had a real zoo at his house,” he said. He meant every word. So the man who already owned a ranch with its own zoo had come all the way to Orlando wanting Shaq’s house.
Shaq tells the Michael story on “Drink Champs” (full episode)
This is REVOLT’s official upload of the whole episode. Skip to 46:03: Shaq starts with Michael showing up at his door, gets to “It’s not for sale,” then moves on to the zoo at Michael’s house (the show’s language is strong in places).
The same story in a 1:25 fan cut
A fan trimmed the “Drink Champs” moment down to just the story, so you can hear Shaq tell it in under a minute and a half.
Shaq raps on Michael’s “2 Bad” (official audio)
This is the official audio of “2 Bad” from “HIStory.” Michael’s vocal rides a beat built on Run-DMC’s “King of Rock,” and the deep voice that takes over for a verse is the same man who once told him no at his own front door.