Shaquille O'Neal Picks Up Tab For Georgia Man's Engagement Ring

ATLANTA, GA — Shaquille O’Neal has always been known as a big man with a big smile and a big heart. But the former NBA star has also made a habit of putting smiles on the faces of others.

O’Neal was caught on video at a Henry County jewelry store paying for a stranger’s engagement ring in the latest act of kindness that O’Neal is becoming known for. In the video, which was posted to Instagram, O’Neal is seen slipping his credit card to a clerk at a Zales store in McDonough on Monday and then shaking the hand of the man who suddenly owes nothing on the ring thanks to O’Neal.

O’Neal, who works as an NBA studio analyst for TNT, said he didn’t mean for the video to get out, but that he just wants to be in the business of making people happy. O’Neal said on the broadcast that he was in Zales shopping for hoop earrings when he saw the man come into the store to make a payment on the ring he had put on layaway.

“He was just so shy and he was saying, ‘How much do I owe to pay off my ring?’,” said O’Neal, who said the stranger was making installment payments on the ring and told the clerk he would return in coming weeks to make another payment.

The former NBA All-Star was having none of that.

O’Neal said he asked the clerk was the man owed and just told him to put the balance on his credit card. O’Neal, who won his own collection of four championship rings during his playing career with the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat, has recently purchased furniture, iPads and other goods for strangers, he said on the TNT broadcast.

O’Neal said the stranger – who he only described as a “young kid and hard-working guy” did not initially want him to pay off the balance, but O’Neal did not give him the option and told him to tell his girlfriend that the ring had been paid off.

“This is something I do every day,” O’Neal said. “…I’m into making people happy. Whenever I leave the house, I just try to do a good deed…..I’m just trying to make people smile, that’s all.”