Shaq MOSTLY Denies Claim He Dumped Urine On Rookies’ Heads: ‘Don’t You Think That Would Piss People Off?’

NBA all-time great and TNT broadcaster Shaquille O’Neal pushed back hard against former teammate Gary Payton’s claim that Shaq used to dump aged buckets of piss on rookie players.

“Shaq is a jokester. So if one of the rookies would be in the stall, he would take a bucket and use the bathroom in it for about a week. And then all of a sudden, he would pour it on them,” Payton said in an interview earlier this week.

On the most recent edition of The Big Podcast with Shaq, Mr. O’Neal told co-hosts Nischelle Turner and Spice Adams that Mr. Payton was incorrect — sort of.

As he bantered about the claim, Shaq made subtle feints at adding wiggle room (saying “not a week,” correcting “urine” to “YOO-RHYNE”) — but heavily implied that a beverage with a urine-esque appearance may have been used in the prank. At some point, Mr. O’Neal appears to have crossed multiple appendages as he spoke.

Ask your lawyer if this counts as a complete denial:

MR. O’NEAL: Speaking of petty, I want to clear something up.

MS. TURNER: OK?

MR. O’NEAL: My main man, Gary Payton, got on some podcast and says something. It’s not true, America.

MS. TURNER: He did.

MR. O’NEAL: What did he say? I don’t know what he said but people are…

MS. TURNER: Not true?

MR. O’NEAL: No it’s not true.

MR. ADAMS: You know what he said!

MS. TURNER: He said you would use the bathroom in a bucket for a week, and then would pour it on the rookies’ heads.

MR. ADAMS: That’s what was said.

MR. O’NEAL: Yeah. Listen, I was mean. I was dirty, but I wasn’t that dirty a lot. So it’s not true. Not true. I didn’t believe it got an energy. That’s nothing. Not a week.

MS. TURNER: He said “Not a week,” yo. Ooh!

MR. O’NEAL: I’m just sayin’. Not a week, not three days. Not even two days.

MS. TURNER: Just one?

MR. O’NEAL: It ain’t true.

MS. TURNER: Did you lie to them and like put Gatorade or lemon-lime in there, make it look like it was, and pour it over their heads?

MR. O’NEAL: Spice, look at me, Spice, it is not true. Okay? It is not true.

MS. TURNER: Everything’s crossed. Everything’s criss-crossed.

MR. O’NEAL: OK, so there’s three ways to manipulate the mind: what you hear, what you read, and what you see. It may have been perceived that it was yoo-rhyne. U-R-I-N-E, but it wasn’t actually yoo-rhyne. It may have been lemonade…

MS. TURNER: So it was lemon-lime soda or lemonade.

MR. O’NEAL: Yeah it may have been some lemonade. That cool, refreshing drink. But I never poured, I never I never use the bathroom for a week and then poured it on somebody head. No. Don’t you think that would, Spice, son’t you think that would piss people off?

MS. TURNER: Well, I was sitting here thinking to myself. Who is this person that’s going to let that happen because we would have been fighting on sight, every time we saw you? I might have got my butt whipped, but I’m not going to sit there and let somebody pour urine on me. I might have gotten. I might get my butt – behind kicked.

MR. O’NEAL: First of all, it’s not urine. It’s YOO-RHYNE. And I never poured YOO-RHYNE on a player’s head, okay? Ever.

MS. TURNER: OK, OK, ever, you, that’s the answer.

Watch above via The Big Podcast with Shaq.