Shaquille O’Neal distances himself from the failed FTX crypto exchange after appearing in their commercials
Basketball legend-turned-businessman Shaquille O’Neal is trying to distance himself from crypto after he was a paid spokesperson for failed exchange FTX and was targeted with a lawsuit for it.
“A lot of people think I’m involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial,” O’Neal told CNBC Do it in this week.
In this commercially, O’Neal said he has partnered with FTX to make crypto “accessible to all.” It was an unexpected alliance considering he told CNBC a year earlier that he was avoiding the crypto craze.
“I don’t get it,” O’Neal said at the time. “So I’ll probably stay away from it until I fully understand what it is.”
His justification? He was skeptical of all the stories of people making big bucks fast.
“Every time someone tells me one of these great stories, I love it,” he said. “But in my experience, it’s too good to be true.”
Last month, customers withdrew billions of dollars worth of holdings from FTX after the CEO of rival exchange Binance tweeted that Binance would be selling its holdings of FTX’s FTT token. Shortly thereafter, FTX filed for bankruptcy and its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned after news reported that he had allegedly mixed funds from FTX customers with another of his companies.
This week, Bankman-Fried was arrested and charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud. With the collapse, many FTX users were unable to withdraw their funds from the platform – and it is unclear if they will ever get that money back.
In his interview with CNBC this week, O’Neal said his friendship with Golden State Warriors player Steph Curry is the reason he appeared in FTX’s ad. A spokesperson for Curry declined CNBC’s request for comment.
Curry was named for FTX in the same lawsuit as O’Neal, along with several other celebrities including soccer star Tom Brady and his soon-to-be ex-wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
The lawsuit, filed by Edwin Garrison in Miami last month, seeks class-action status on behalf of himself and FTX users against Bankman-Fried and prominent FTX supporters. The complaint describes FTX as a “Ponzi scheme” and alleges that its celebrity spokespersons endorsed unregistered securities.
“People know I’m very, very honest,” O’Neal said. “I have nothing to hide. If I was heavily involved, I would be on the front lines and say, ‘Hey.’ But I was just a paid spokesperson.”
In his FTX commercial, he said he was just a regular guy checking his FTX account – and that he was “all in”. But when asked this week if he was bullish on crypto, he simply said no.
O’Neal, widely known as Shaq, has not disclosed how much he was paid as a spokesperson for FTX. But Kevin O’Leary, a regular on ABC investor show Shark Tank who was also one of FTX’s celebrity spokespersons, said he received about $15 million. O’Leary told CNBC that he invested nearly $10 million in crypto, received $1 million in FTX equity, and earned $4 million in taxes and other fees — all lost when the company collapsed.
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