'I Do Say Bitch And I Did Take The Money' - Shaq On Why He Accepted A Role In 'Blue Chips'

[SI] - NOLTE Billy and I had to go down to Orlando. We were in a hotel. Shaq and his agent came in. Shaq had read the script. He said, “I want to do this film.” Then his agent stepped in and said, “But, we’ve got some problems. He can’t say ‘bitch,’ and his character cannot have taken money.” And Shaq interrupted: “No, that’s why I want to do the movie! I do say ‘bitch’ and I did take money!”

In the movie Neon does drop the B-bomb, and he does accept a Lexus, though he says he never asked for it. As for O’Neal’s own past with college payoffs, he tells it a little differently.

O’NEAL Ah, hell no, never. I had a lot of stuff coming my way, and I was like, Nope. In college my father told me, “You’ve been broke for 17 years; you can be broke for two more. Don’t sell your soul.”

FRIEDKIN Shaq confirmed everything in that film. So I knew we were on the right track. This wasn’t just a fantasy basketball movie.

This is the second oral history done on Blue Chips in the last couple of months and frankly that’s not enough. I’ve said it before but Blue Chips is one of my favorite movies ever, only behind White Men Can’t Jump and in a tier with He Got Game and Hoosiers as the best basketball movie out there.

Now in the last oral history we learned that Bobby Knight was a (shocking news) complete dick.

Shaq’s fascinating in this though. He’s a dude that’s obviously a huge name now and was back then. But, really it’s just the backstory on Shaq. He grew up in a military family and talked about it quite a bit. That’s why it’s hilarious to see his agent say ‘he won’t say bitch.’

Naturally he responded in the only possible. ‘I do say bitch.’ I mean of course he does. Think about all the times now he goes after Chuck on the TNT set. I’m pretty sure he’s called him a bitch a bunch of times on there.

But, the real story is the ‘I did take the money.’ We got a bit of contradiction from the big guy here. We hear that line, then we hear him say he had things coming his way but never accepted it because of his dad but then it’s confirmed that Blue Chips is an accurate representation of what happened. As we all know:

Just the best movie, man. Crazy how relevant it still is 25 years later thanks to the FBI investigation. Also, shout out Bobby Hurley