Shaq Diesel: King of monetary overindulgence

January 23rd, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

Sports by Brooks kindly directs us today to Past Deadline’s look into Shaquille O’Neal’s divorce. Now, we’re not talking about the reasons behind said divorce — although I’d like to imagine O’Neal watching Kazaam and playing Shaq Fu on Super NES and not paying attention to his kids as a major riff in his marriage — we’re talking about straight cash, homie.

According to the financial deposition obtained by “Extra,” Shaq is throwing down real big on some stuff. We’re talking $1,500 a month on cable big.

The financial affidavit obtained by “Extra” reveals that O’Neal made almost $2 million a month. But before your jaw drops, keep in mind that Shaq had a lot of expenses, as well. According to the affidavit he spent $22,000 a month for maid service. That’s probably more than most hotels I’ve stayed at but I can understand he enjoys clean surroundings.

His monthly clothing expenditure is $17,000, which isn’t as big a deal as you think when you consider the amount of material that goes into most of those garments. His monthly vacations cost $110,000 but, then, first class accommodations don’t come cheap and I doubt he has time to start fiddling with Priceline.

I admit I was a little puzzled by the monthly expense at the gas station–$23,000. That works out to about 6,000 gallons of gas, or about 200 gallons a day.

I understand people with a lot of money tend to spend a lot of money; this is the nature of the beast. If I was making $2 million a month, I’d likely be buying top hats and vests, too. (Any maybe I’d have one of those moon jumping things in my backyard just for the hell of it.) But when you look at the gas expenditure and some of the other costs, this seems exorbitant even by celebrity standards. If he’s paying $1,500 a month for cable, I’d hope he’d at least be getting the Big Ten Network. Actually, no, that’s probably wishful thinking.