Shaq out here being a bro.
The NBA legend was recently in an Atlanta-area jewelry store at the same time as a young man who was there to pay off his engagement ring.
Now, just seeing Shaq up close and in person would probably be pretty cool for the guy. But Shaq had a big surprise for him: He slid the cashier his credit card and paid off the man’s ring.
Shaq addressed his good deed on NBA on TNT after video of the interaction made its rounds on social media.
After some ribbing by his co-hosts for shopping at Zale’s (and a reminder from Shaq that he has his own jewelry line at the store), Shaq explained how it went down:
“I went in there to get some loop earrings and I seen a guy come in, he was just so shy. And he was saying ‘How much do I owe to pay off my ring?’ And I was like, ‘My man, how much is the ring?’ And I’m not going to say the amount but it’s not much to me…
The guy just came in and, you know, he was a young kid, he was a hardworking guy, and he was like ‘Hey man, I can come back next month and the next,’ like layaway… But I was like, ‘You know what, tell your girlfriend I got it. Take care of her.'”
Shaq said at first the young man didn’t want to accept the gift, but that he’s “into making people happy” and didn’t mean for video of the encounter to get out.
He also explained that it’s the kind of good deed that he tries to do every day to make people smile, mentioning that he also recently paid off some furniture for a woman with an autistic daughter who he saw out while he was furniture shopping.
What an awesome dude.
And as somebody who just bought an engagement ring last year, I’m sure it means the world to this guy to finally be able to buy the ring so that he can pop the question to his girlfriend without having to worry about how he’s going to pay for it.
And now he’s not only going to have an engagement ring and a fiancée, but he’s going to have a pretty cool story to tell about how it all happened.
