David Beckham’s pockets discovered by Shaquille O’Neal who took cash and made demand
Shaquille O’Neal once stumbled upon David Beckham’s wallet while out in Los Angeles and told the tale of the amusing encounter on The Late Late Show with James Corden
NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal once found David Beckham‘s wallet in Los Angeles and gave the Manchester United and England legend a hilarious ultimatum.
The 7ft 1in basketball icon and outspoken star has four NBA championships under his belt, three with the Los Angeles Lakers and one with the Miami Heat. Beckham meanwhile caused quite a stir when he moved to LA Galaxy from Real Madrid in 2007 and has since become co-owner of Inter Miami, playing a crucial role in signing big names like Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and Luis Suarez.
During a memorable stint on ‘The Late Late Show with James Corden’, O’Neal recalled the incident in Beverly Hills, while sitting alongside Beckham’s wife, Victoria. He amusingly described his initial plan to keep the cash from the discovered wallet until he realised it belonged to Beckham.
He said: “I was walking one day in Beverly Hills and I found a wallet. Usually when I find wallets I just take all the money out and I just throw them, but this was a nice wallet,” reports the Express.
Upon identifying Beckham from the ID, O’Neal chose not to hand it over to a desk clerk and instead tracked down Beckham to return it personally. “First I played a joke, I was like ‘I have your wallet, it’s going to cost you a million dollars to get it back’, but he knew it was me.”
The basketball icon added: “[Beckham said] ‘Shaq, stop playing’. I was like ‘Dave, I found your wallet’. The funny thing is he [Beckham] said ‘There was some money in this wallet, you know what happened?’ And I was like ‘nope’.”
O’Neal hung up his NBA jersey in 2012 following a storied career that included stints with the Lakers, Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns, and the Boston Celtics. He clinched the league MVP title in 2000 and earned All-Star honours 15 times.Beckham called time on his professional footballing journey in 2013, after a spell at Paris Saint-Germain during the latter part of the 2012/13 season. The celebrated midfielder wrapped up his career with a tally of 127 goals and 225 assists across 724 matches for clubs including United, Real Madrid, AC Milan, PSG and LA Galaxy.
Beyond his venture with Inter Miami, Beckham also has stakes in League Two’s Salford City, alongside former United team-mates Gary Neville, Nicky Butt, Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, who are co-owners.
