Shaq Breaks Down Crying In Emotional Response to Death of ‘Little Brother’ Kobe: ‘My Spirit Just Left My Body’

Pro basketball Hall-of-Famer and five-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal broke down crying in an emotional response to the shocking death of former Los Angeles Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant and Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter, Gianna.

During an hour-long tribute to Bryant at the start of NBA on TNT, O’Neal opened up about hearing about his longtime friend’s death in a helicopter crash on Sunday near Los Angeles. The massive, seven-foot-tall former center referred to Bryant, a lightning-quick and prolific-scoring guard, as his “little brother” and likened the devastating news that Bryant and his daughter had been killed — and that another former Lakers teammate, Rick Fox, might have been on the helicopter as well, a rumor that wasn’t true — as a “triple stabbing to the heart.”

Host Ernie Johnson prompted O’Neal by asking him how he was holding up, giving the basketball star his first public chance to talk about Bryant, who ranks fourth all-time in NBA scoring. The response was a heartfelt and moving tribute by O’Neal to a former teammate who he very famously shared an on-again, off-again relationship with during their respective basketball careers, in which the pair won three consecutive titles as Lakers teammates between 2000–02.

“I lost a little brother, our names will be attached together for what we did,” O’Neal said, before nodding at the fractious friendship between the two but adding “the respect that will never be lost.”

Later, O’Neal began openly weeping as he contemplated all the missed conversations brought on by Bryant’s death.

“We’re not going to be able to joke at his Hall of Fame ceremony when I’m going to be able to say ‘I got five, you got four [championships],’ the fact that we’re not gonna be able to say ‘If we would’ve stayed together we could’ve got ten,'” a visibly distraught O’Neal said, crying as he hung his head. “Those are the things that you can’t get back.”

“You know my spirit just left my body,” O’Neal later explained, revisiting the moment he heard of Bryant’s crash. “I wish I could be able to say one thing, one last thing to the people that we lost because no one’s going to go on forever and, you know, we should never take stuff like that for granted.”