Shaquille O’Neal Defends His Appearance in ‘Tiger King’ Documentary: “I don’t harm tigers. I love tigers”

Shaquille O’Neal is defending his cameo in Netflix’s new hit docuseries, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness.

In the seven-part docu-series,  Shaq is seen visiting Joe Exotic’s Oklahoma Zoo years before it closed amid Joe’s legal battle with Carole Baskin.

On an episode of his podcast The Big Podcast With Shaq, the Hall of Famer explained the visit and said that he did not buy any tigers.

“So we go in there, and it’s a beautiful place, and the character that was there was Exotic Joe,” the former NBA star said. “We’re there, and I dropped some donations for the tigers’ foods and all that. We take pictures with tigers. We went back a couple times.”

But once he learned the animals were being mistreated and Joe Exotic’s dealings became public, Shaq said never went back.

“Then we go back another time, and we found out that he’s involved with all the stuff, and then, actually, I stopped going,” Shaq said.

“I don’t harm tigers. I love tigers. I love white tigers. Do I put donations to these zoos to help these tigers out? I do it all the time. Do I own tigers personally at my house? No. But I love tigers,’ he said

“Listen, people are going to make their own opinions, but, again, I was just a visitor. I met this guy – not my friend. Don’t know him. Never had any business dealings with him, and I had no idea any of that stuff was going on,” he added.