Shaquille O’Neal appears to have a new girlfriend and fans think she bears a striking resemblance to ex-wife Shaunie O’Neal.
The NBA Hall of Famer was snapped with a mystery woman frolicking in the ocean in Europe.
Shaq had been DJing at the Tomorrowland Festival in Belgium, TMZ reported and following his set, he jumped into a mosh pit with eager fans. Afterward, he flew to Croatia to do a set at the POW WOW Festival at the Noa Beach Club July 22.
But it wasn’t all work for the ex-Los Angeles Lakers center. He took some time to relax and have some fun on a yacht off the coast of Formentera, Spain. And it was at the beach there that he was photographed with his new woman.
Sports Gossip identified the lady as Dani Nicole, a 26-year-old Instagram model from Houston.
Online, folks have commented that the 47-year-old’s much-younger girlfriend looks a lot like Shaq’s ex-wife, who is the mother of his four children.
“She look kinda like Shaunie in the 2nd pic.”
“Young Shaunie.”
“He def has a type.”
“She looks like a young Shaunie 🤷🏽♀️”
A serial dater, Shaq has remained affectionate and playful with his ex-wife. At an event last month, the duo was snapped laughing as Shaq enveloped the “Basketball Wives” cast member in a bear hug.
When the images surfaced online, Shaq wrote in the comments, “That’s mine.” The photos also spurred tons of comments from fans hoping the former spouses would rekindle their romance.
But Shaunie was unamused, commenting with a facepalm emoji when a pal remarked about the speculation.
More recently, the reality TV star tweeted in response to an episode focusing on their son Shareef O’Neal’s health scare and expressed how thankful she was for her so-called best friend.
“Thank you @SHAQ for being my Best Friend and being an example of what co-parenting looks like! #Basketballwives #ThatsMyBestFriendThatsMyBestFriend,” she posted June 19.
The O’Neals ended their marriage in the mid-aughts after five years of being married. Shaunie has previously explained that their co-parenting relationship was not always so amicable, but the pair worked to get to that place.
“We’re great now, but it took a long time,” she said to Life & Style last year. “Like, we definitely did not have the relationship that we have now the first few years. I mean, we’re going on eight years of being divorced now and I’d have to say the good first five [or] six were really rough. We could function, but it was rough…. [I]t was really really hard.”
