Shaunie Henderson saw the signs of her marriage with Shaquille O’Neal “beginning to crumble” long before their divorce rocked the sports and entertainment world in 2011.
Henderson, the creator of VH1’s reality series “Basketball Wives,” explained what went wrong in their marriage, which played out during O’Neal’s star-studded Lakers days, in her new book, “Undefeated: Changing the Rules and Winning on My Own Terms,” out Tuesday, May 7.
“I enjoyed those sweet early years being a mother and raising my children; my days were always busy with kids and family, and every now and then I got to travel or enjoy a little of the NBA high life. But invisibly, my marriage was beginning to crumble,” Henderson, now 49, wrote.
“As I’ve written, it wasn’t obvious early on. You know how when you first get sick, and the symptoms are so mild that you’re not even sure you are sick? That’s how things were in the early years. I was busy and happy and didn’t notice what was going on. But as the disease progressed, the symptoms became harder and harder to ignore.”
Henderson and O’Neal, who got married at the Beverly Hilton hotel mid-season in December 2022, share four children: sons Shareef and Shaqir and daughters Amirah and Me’arah.
O’Neal has a daughter, Taahirah, from an earlier relationship — and Henderson’s son Myles, also from a previous relationship, later took on O’Neal’s surname.
Henderson recalled hearing rumors about O’Neal when they moved from Los Angeles to Miami after the center was traded to the Heat in 2004.
“Take Shaquille’s habit of ‘going missing,’” Henderson, who has since remarried, recalled. “Our chef did all the grocery shopping. His managers paid all the bills. I took care of the kids. So where was he going in the morning, during the day, and at night? No one works out that often.
“When we moved to Miami, I even heard a rumor that he had a condo in Miami Beach. I started to get suspicious, but he always had an answer, and I could never prove anything. Eventually, I was forced to admit that my family life wasn’t as blissful or perfect as I wanted to believe.”
On the surface, though, it appeared as though Henderson and O’Neal were living their happily ever after. They lived in massive mansions with luxury cars and enjoyed lavish Christmases at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“Looking back, I don’t know that I was ever really in love with the man, but I was in love with the idea of being married to the man I had a family with,” Henderson wrote. “I was in love with the idea of building a life together. I truly did enjoy spending time with him. [NBA] road trips gave me a chance to be with my husband and experience the NBA life for a little while.”
Henderson explained in the book’s introduction that O’Neal tried to be the best husband and father he could to her and their children while navigating fame and receiving a lot of attention from women.
“He was trying to be a world-famous, thirty-something multimillionaire with thousands of women throwing themselves at him, and people in general begging just to be in his presence, while being a husband and a father at the same time,” she wrote. “How could anyone possibly know how to do that?”
Henderson made it clear that O’Neal never tried to hide her — he would blow kisses to her from the court at NBA games — and was so proud of their life together.
“It was not hard to fall for his charm,” Henderson wrote of their first meeting in 1999, when she was working in the marketing department at 20th Century Fox.
“I staffed the premiere of ‘Star Wars: Episode 1–The Phantom Menace’ for Fox. I was checking in special guests, and Shaquille wasn’t even on the guest list, but he was such a big deal in L.A. that nobody cared when he showed up unannounced,” she wrote. “My bosses let him in the theater, but he ended up spending most of the movie in the lobby, trying to talk to me.”
After a few dates, Henderson and O’Neal were an item, and they went on to become one of the most famous NBA couples.
O’Neal has taken the blame for the demise of the couple’s marriage on multiple occasions.
In his 2011 memoir, “Shaq Uncut: My Story,” O’Neal explained that he “was a guy with too many options,” and that infidelity played a role in his split with Henderson.
During an April 2023 appearance on “The Pivot Podcast,” Shaq said, “I was bad… It was all me.”
While the four-time NBA champion did not disclose details about what went wrong in the relationship, he did say that he “wasn’t protecting [Henderson] and protecting those vows.”
O’Neal filed for divorce in Miami in September 2007, and the couple reconciled nearly a year later — with Henderson telling the Associated Press at the time that they were not going through with the divorce proceedings.
They called it quits again in 2009, and their divorce was finalized in 2011.
It led to Henderson finding her own financial independence and creating “Basketball Wives” in 2010. The reality show follows the daily lives and dynamics between wives, ex-wives and girlfriends of professional basketball players.
“Basketball Wives.” Sebastian Kim
“After almost a year of planning, I had left my husband of nearly seven years, Shaquille O’Neal, along with the life my children and I had come to know… I told my divorce attorneys I didn’t want to fight with Shaquille. I just wanted him to take care of his kids,” Henderson wrote. “I didn’t care about anything else. I had also told them I didn’t want a cent of Shaquille’s money, and I meant it. I wanted to be free to have the life I wanted, on my terms, even while raising five kids under eleven… I’d turned my back on mansions, luxury cars, private jets, and a lifetime of wealth and privilege.”
Henderson explained that she and O’Neal now “have reached a placed of peaceful coexistence” and she “doesn’t want to ruin that” with her book.
“So, while I’m going to be honest, I’m not going to wallow in the mud,” she wrote. “Before I go any further, it’s important that I stress that I’m not blaming Shaquille for what happened to our marriage. He did the best he could with the tools he had.
“… Neither of us took the time to invest in our future by seeking marriage counseling, which, looking back, we probably should have. We both thought we were doing ‘the right thing’ by jumping into family life, and we gave it our best.
The CEO of Amirah, Inc., the production company behind Basketball Wives, married pastor Keion Henderson in May 2022.
O’Neal wished them well in a June 2023 interview with singer Monica.
“Shaunie was also a perfect woman and I messed it up,” O’Neal said during an appearance on Monica’s Apple Music Hits “Mo Talk Radio” show.
“… I hope this gentleman treats her the way she’s supposed to be treated, and I’m going to still love her. She’s still my wife. I will always protect, provide and love for her — married or not.”
