Basketball legend turned businessman Shaquille ONeal is attempting to distance himself from crypto after being a paid spokesperson for failed exchange FTX and targeted with a lawsuit for it.
A lot of people think Im involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial, ONeal told CNBC Make it this week.
In that commercial, ONeal said he partnered with FTX to help make crypto accessible to everyone. It was an unexpected alliance considering that a year earlier he told CNBC that he was avoiding the crypto craze.
I dont understand it, ONeal said at the time. So I will probably stay away from it until I get a full understanding of what it is.
His reasoning? He was skeptical of all the stories of people making big money quickly.
Every time somebody tells me one of those great stories, I like it, he said. But from my experience, it is too good to be true.
Last month, clients of FTX withdrew billions of dollars worth of holdings after the CEO of rival exchange Binance tweeted that Binance would sell its holding of FTXs FTT token. Soon after, FTX filed for bankruptcy, and its CEO Sam Bankman-Fried resigned after news reports that he had allegedly co-mingled funds of FTX clients with another one of his ventures.
This week, Bankman-Fried was arrested and charged with several counts of conspiracy and fraud. With its collapse, many FTX users have been unable to withdraw their money from the platformand its unclear if theyll ever get that money back.
In his interview with CNBC this week, ONeal said his friendship with Golden State Warriors player Steph Curry is why appeared in FTXs ad. A spokesperson for Curry declined CNBCs request for comment.
Curry, along with several other celebrities like football star Tom Brady and his soon to be ex-wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, were named in the same lawsuit as ONeal over FTX.
The lawsuit, filed in Miami by Edwin Garrison last month, seeks class action status on behalf of himself and FTX users against Bankman-Fried and FTXs celebrity endorsers. The complaint describes FTX as a Ponzi scheme, and claims that its celebrity spokespeople had endorsed unregistered securities.
People know Im very, very honest, ONeal said. I have nothing to hide. If I was heavily involved, I would be at the forefront saying, Hey. But I was just a paid spokesperson.
In his FTX commercial, he said hes just an everyday guy who checks his FTX accountand that hes all in. But when asked this week if hes bullish on crypto, he just said no.
ONeal, who is widely known as Shaq, hasnt shared how much he was paid to be FTXs spokesperson. But Kevin OLeary, a regular on ABCs Shark Tank investor show, who was also among FTXs celebrity spokespeople, said he was paid around $15 million. OLeary told CNBC that he put nearly $10 million in crypto, was given $1 million in FTX equity, and $4 million was taken in taxes and other fees all of it lost when the company collapsed.
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