Shaquille O’Neal has reignited his feud with Dave Portnoy, calling the Barstool Sports founder an ‘idiot’ and saying he would be ‘glad if somebody punches him in the face’ after Portnoy attacked Tom Brady’s post-football career.
Speaking to Page Six, the 54-year-old jumped to Brady’s defense after Portnoy blasted the seven-time Super Bowl champion as ‘lame-ified’ for performing skits at Fanatics Fest in New York and associating with social media figures like Logan Paul.
‘Dave talks a lot,’ O’Neal told Page Six. ‘He’s one of those lucky guys who had a lot of success. So, he thinks his point of view is important.’
‘I’d be glad if somebody punches him in the face. And I hope it’s Tom [Brady],’ O’Neal added. ‘I try to be nice, [but] you can tell him I said that.’
O’Neal also insisted that Brady ‘knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’s doing it so well,’ dismissing opinions from ‘idiots’ like Portnoy as ones that ‘never’ matter.
Portnoy fired back on X shortly after, writing: ‘I didn’t see that one coming. I like Shaq. He’s dead wrong here though. Like dead wrong.’
The clash is the latest episode in a running rivalry between the two. In 2023, O’Neal publicly called out Portnoy after the Barstool founder criticized then-LSU basketball star Angel Reese. The pair later appeared to patch things up during a brief encounter at UFC 314.
