Not so fast, Shaq.
Retired basketball superstar center Shaquille O’Neal, 42, stands 7 feet 1 and weighs around 330 pounds. Divorced, he owns a $250 million, 11-bedroom resort near Orlando, Fla., and two years ago bought a $235,000 pad. He holds a doctorate in education, has performed rap, acted in movies, penned an autobiography (“Shaq Talks Back”), serves as a TV analyst and has appeared on “Saturday Night Live.”
CelebrityNetWorth.com pegs his personal fortune at $350 million.
Shorter, slighter and 23, high-school graduate Jahmel Binion lives in Michigan with his dad and has been unemployed since February after being let go from a factory job because his body couldn’t stand the heat. He also considered Shaq his basketball idol and respected his charitable work and advocacy for poor American kids.
Some thanks.
The fabulous former roundballer repaid Binion’s loyalty by mocking the young man’s appearance last month. Contorting his own face into a twisted grimace, O’Neal posted a picture of himself on Instagram alongside a selfie of Binion he found on the picture-sharing social network. Binion, whose irregular features have long made him the target of taunts by creeps and cyberbullies like Shaq, is afflicted with a rare genetic condition.
O’Neal’s post, captioned “SMILE TODAY,” drew more than 14,000 likes and 400 comments. Joining the online teasing were rapper Wacka Flocka Flame, 27, and ex-University of Michigan hoops star Trey Burke, 21, now a guard with the Utah Jazz.
O’Neal deleted the offensive picture and replaced it with one of himself next to a pic of the ogre from the animated movie “Shrek.” Funny.
Then on Tuesday night, he called Binion’s cellphone and said he was sorry. He posted on Twitter:
“Made a new friend today when I called and apologized to Jahmel Binion. Great dude.#alwayslearning #MYBADCUZ.”
It isn’t enough.
“I’m happy that he apologized but I feel like he shouldn’t have only apologized to me even if it was my picture,” Binion told me in an e-mail.
“He affected a lot more people than me so I feel like he should apologize to everyone that’s dealing with different situations in life.”
Last Saturday, Binion created an anti-bullying Facebook page called Hug Don’t Judge.
“I accept his personal apology,” Binion wrote, “but I think he should apologize to all” people afflicted with his condition — “and anybody else with a disability.”
I’m waiting.
Called ectodermal dysplasia, Binion’s disorder prevents him from perspiring, causes sparse hair growth and has kept his teeth from forming properly, leaving gaps in his mouth.
Burke, too, called Binion to apologize for his cruelty. Wacka Flocka Flame posted regrets on Twitter. “Right I wanna apologize to #JahmelBinion for being a ass and making a mockery of him.”
Decent folks and sports lovers — just about all of us — recoiled in horror as two recordings were released online revealing that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, 80, is a filthy bigot. He was heard berating his then-girlfriend, V. Stiviano, 31, on April 9 for appearing in Instagram photos with African-Americans, such as basketball legend Magic Johnson.
Sterling was banned for life from any involvement with basketball, fined $2.5 million by the National Basketball Association, and is under pressure to sell his team.
But no one is talking about punishing O’Neal, a part-owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.
Mary Fete, executive director for the National Foundation for Ectodermal Dysplasias, posted an open letter to O’Neal on the organization’s Web site Monday, calling his online behavior “especially reprehensible.”
She wrote, “Consider giving Jahmel Binion the gift of a smile, one that others would not make fun of. Give him a smile that would give him confidence and pride.”
Binion would like O’Neal to make a monetary contribution to his Hugs campaign, or to the dysplasia foundation. I’d like to see him pay for expensive dental implants that would fix Binion’s teeth.
It’s time for Shaquille O’Neal to man up. He must admit publicly that he acted worse than a middle-school miscreant.
Smooth way out of Eliot Mess
Former Love Gov Eliot Spitzer is paying his ex-wife, Silda, big-time. Spitzer, 54, the unemployed toe-sucker who’s rich from his daddy’s real-estate fortune, quit as New York’s governor in 2008 after being caught spending more than $100,000 for the services of hookers. His divorce became final in February.
Eliot is handing Silda, 56, $7.5 million over seven years and will pay her $240,000 annually for the rest of her life, plus fork over taxes on the loot, according to a postnuptial agreement revealed by RadarOnline.com and reviewed by Emily Smith of The Post’s Page Six. Other goodies include the couple’s apartment on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue or one like it. Eliot is paying for Silda’s health care, for an accountant, housekeeper and part-time assistant, must award Silda $100,000 a year that she can give to charity, and buy her a new car “no more than every five years.”
If Silda shacks up with a man (or woman), Eliot has to pay, but the deal ends if Silda remarries. Why bother?
Eliot was seen in January sucking the toes of girlfriend Lis Smith, who served as spokeswoman for his failed Democratic primary campaign for comptroller last year, in a hot tub at a resort on the Caribbean island of Jamaica.
Silda got the better deal.
Clooney gal plays by ‘The Rules’
British human-rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin won a marriage proposal from George Clooney the old-fashioned way — by playing hard to get.
Alamuddin, 36, turned down the 52-year-old actor twice before agreeing to go out with him on a date, a source told the Daily Mail newspaper. This thrills Sherrie Schneider and Ellen Fein, co-authors of “The Rules” and its sequels. The 1995 book teaches women how to land husbands by being unavailable.
Who knew Alamuddin was a Rules Girl?
‘Play’ time is over
“We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable life-long skills and know that we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writers, co-workers and problem solvers.”
Parents of students at Harley Park Elementary School on Long Island were stunned to get this letter from the interim principal — explaining why the kindergarten play was being canceled!
Rather than break into song on May 14 and 15, I imagine that 5- and 6-year-olds will be chained to their miniature desks, reading, writing and solving problems. This takes the joy out of being a kid.
Porn stars’ banky-panky
Some porn stars received letters from Chase Bank informing them that their accounts would be closed on May 11. Penthouse pet Teagan Presley told adult Web site Xbiz.com that a worker at her branch told her that the bank didn’t want to do business with her kind.
Time to take your soiled dollars elsewhere.