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Is Shaquille O'Neal anti-vaxxer? NBA legend slammed for 'sympathetic' comment

Shaquille O'Neal said that he sympathizes with people who are forced to get Covid-19 vaccine

Shaquille O’Neal says he’s 'sympathetic' towards people who defy vaccine mandates, and that workers shouldn’t be 'forced' to choose between their jobs and getting a shot.

The Los Angeles Lakers legend said on 'The Big Podcast with Shaq' on Thursday, February 3 that he encourages everyone to be safe and take care of their family but he feels sympathetic towards people who are forced to take the Covid-19 vaccine even if they don't want to.

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"I encourage everybody to be safe and take care of your family, I do. But it’s just, people don’t want to take it, and you shouldn’t be forced to take something you don’t want,” O’Neal said.

O'Neal's remarks came up during a discussion with co-hosts Nischelle Turner and former San Francisco 49ers player Anthony “Spice” Adams on the recent arrest of two Long Island nurses who were accused of making more than $1.5 million off of forged Covid-19 vaccination cards. “Don’t send them to jail!” O’Neal — who last year criticized Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving for voicing hesitancy toward the Covid-19 vaccine — exclaimed. 

“I’m gonna probably get in trouble for this,” O’Neal continued.

Turner countered that she “wholeheartedly disagreed” with O’Neal. “You’re not just affecting yourself,” Turner said, “you’re putting the public at risk and it’s a public health issue. You work for a private company, bro. We’re a capitalist society. It’s a free market society. If you don't want to follow that company's policy, then you follow yourself on out the door.”

“I’m with you on the rules because I’m a rules guy,” O’Neal agreed. “But I do feel sympathetic towards people who have to make that kind of decision.”

“I don’t,” Turner said, “not when you’re putting other people at risk.”

More than 850,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States since the beginning of the pandemic and such a remark by O'Neal is getting quite a response on the internet.  Some users are very much shocked by this remark and they are against it and roasting him online. One user on Twitter tweeted, "Screw you, Shaq". Another wrote, "All the #antivaxxers cheering @SHAQ for opposing vaccine mandates will be very unhappy when they’re “forced” to get a COVID vaccine to attend his Fun House Super Bowl Party."

Another sarcastically says that by next week Shaq will be fired from TNT over conspiracy theory views on vaccine mandates.

"@SHAQ you PATHETIC anti vaxxer. I almost died February 2020 and you are sympathetic towards people who don’t want the vaccine while threatening the rest of us that have immune compromise systems? You make me so angry so awfully angry. You are nothing to me now. SELFISH&NOTHING." another user tweeted.

But anti-vaxxers are cheering hard for O'Neal and they are coming out and supporting his view and saying that Shaq is talking about is freedom of choice. A user wrote, "Shaquille O'Neal came out against the illegal vaccine mandates today. I've always like this guy".

"Amen. I understand that for some people, they may voluntarily get vaccines for their own peace of mind, and that's okay. However, some people may not wish to be vaccinated or see the point in it,and they should be afforded the same freedom of choice as anyone else," a user tweeted supporting O'Neal.