Life wasn’t always lavish for star athletes Shaquille O’Neal and Venus Williams.
Shaq and Williams have revealed how they spent their first big checks when they made it in their respective sports (via CNBC), with Shaq dropping more than $1 million in the first hour of signing his contract.
The NBA star first opted for a $150,000 Mercedes-Benz but then followed that up with a matching one for his dad and a smaller $100,000 version for his mom. Shaq, who played 19 seasons in the NBA, put the rest of his money toward paying off his mom’s house and doing “what all the homeboys do — gotta buy rings and diamonds and earrings and this and that,” he told Business Insider.
He eventually learned to reign in the spending but never regretted dropping that money. “It was well worth it,” the 46-year-old said.
Tennis star Williams, however, played it very safe with her big paycheck. When she earned her first Grand Slam title at the age of 20, which left her with a check worth $559,000 today, she went straight to the bank.
“I really didn’t spend any of it,” the now-38-year-old told CNBC Make It. “I just didn’t want to become a statistic, or one of those athletes that had it all and then in the end had nothing.
“That was always in the back of my mind, so it made me want to be more realistic with how I spent money.”
Source: Read Full Article