Sunday, May 12, 2002
From the New York Post: SHAQUILLE O'Neal may be even more fun dead than alive. After the 7-foot, 330-pound Lakers center lost his grandmother recently, he started thinking about his dream mausoleum. "I thought it would be all marble, with Superman logos everywhere. There would be stadium seating, and only my family would have the key, and they would be able to go in there and sit down, like in a little apartment," he tells Rebecca Mead in next week's The New Yorker. And not far from his massive coffin would be a constant reminder of Shaq Diesel's livelier days. "My grave would be right there, and there would be a TV showing, like, an hour-long video of who I was." Just who is he? O'Neal says, "Shaquille is corporate, nice looking, soft-spoken, wears suits and is very cordial to people, whereas Shaq is the dominant athlete who is the two-time champion." The baller has yet a third identity, an evil alter ego he's named Elliuqahs Laeno. "That's my name spelled backward . . . He stays out all night, tries to practice the next day, isn't focused. He's dead, though. I killed him."