Shaquille O'Neal Surprises Fans with Pizza After Disguising Himself as Delivery Man

By Joe Setyon August 30, 2019 at 3:44pm

It’s hard to improve on a good slice of pizza — unless, of course, that slice was delivered to you courtesy of retired NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal.

O’Neal, who works as a brand ambassador, member of the board and franchise owner at Papa John’s, recently dressed up as a pizza delivery man and delivered pies around Los Angeles.

“We’re about to go deliver some pizza to the people,” O’Neal says in a video posted to YouTube on Friday. “This is not a commercial, the people do not know we are coming.”

“So, here it goes,” O’Neal, who’s wearing a Papa John’s shirt, says.

And there he went:

O’Neal is then shown delivering pizzas around the town.

“This is a really, really tough job,” he says.

At one point, O’Neal appears to be in what looks like a school surrounded by excited children.

Then, the video shows him back in the car, looking as though he’s about to fall asleep.

O’Neal’s partnership with Papa John’s officially began in March, when he was named to the board, agreed to become an ambassador for the brand and bought stakes in nine Atlanta-based restaurants, according to Quartz.

“I plan to purchase as many [locations] as I can as I can,” O’Neal told USA Today in June. “Everyone loves pizza and pizza loves everyone.”

The NBA legend told Yahoo Finance this week that there were several reasons he decided to partner with Papa John’s — including the company’s lack of diversity on its board, as well as his desire to “get into the franchise business.”

“The Papa John’s situation, I realized that there was a problem there: they didn’t have any diversity on the board,” he said. “And I always wanted to become a franchisee — not for money purposes. One day I was reading an article, and it was talking about the best retired athlete businessmen. And I thought my name was going to be at the top.”

“When I saw my name wasn’t at the top, it got me to thinking,” O’Neal added.

“I used to be in the franchise business, I had 155 Five Guys, I sold those,” he said.

“And Papa John’s in college was big for me, because it was what I ordered. So when I met with [former Papa John’s CEO] Steve Ritchie and [Starboard Capital CEO] Jeff Smith, I said ‘I would like to be involved, if I can be on the board and if I can purchase a couple franchises.’”

O’Neal’s partnership with the pizza chain hasn’t come without a few interesting choices.

I snuck some secret food footage from the @PapaJohns board meeting & I took a little heat for it. Worth it. pic.twitter.com/rh2AmVtzyV

— SHAQ (@SHAQ) August 2, 2019

Earlier this month, O’Neal posted a video to Twitter in which he taste-tested a new product called the Papadia, which, as The Takeout noted, appears to be nothing more than an entire pizza folded in half and sliced into quarters.

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Tags:

fast food, NBA, Shaquille O'Neal

Joe Setyon

Deputy Managing Editor, Editorial

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Joe Setyon was a deputy managing editor for The Western Journal who had spent his entire professional career in editing and reporting. He previously worked in Washington, D.C., as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine.

@JoeSetyon

Joe Setyon was deputy managing editor for The Western Journal with several years of copy editing and reporting experience. He graduated with a degree in communication studies from Grove City College, where he served as managing editor of the student-run newspaper. Joe previously worked as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine, a libertarian publication in Washington, D.C., where he covered politics and wrote about government waste and abuse.

Birthplace

Brooklyn, New York

Topics of Expertise

Sports, Politics