Shaq Turned Down an Offer to Do Business with Starbucks Because ‘Black People Don’t Drink Coffee’

Basketball star Shaquille O’Neal said he once turned down an offer to do business with Starbucks because he thought “black people didn’t drink coffee” — and deeply regrets it now that he’s seen the chain’s success.

During an interview with sports reporter Graham Bensinger, O’Neal said that he had once received a call from his agent informing him that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wanted to “go in with him” and open up some franchises in black communities.

“So I looked in the great Howard Schultz’s face and said, ‘Black people don’t drink coffee, sir. I don’t think it’s gonna work,’” he said.

Shaq’s reasoning: In his own household, no one drank coffee — only sweet tea and hot chocolate — so it was his “thought process that black people didn’t drink coffee.”

“And I’m always the guy that if I don’t believe in it, can’t do it,” he said.

Fellow NBA star Magic Johnson later bought stakes in 105 Starbucks franchises and sold them back in 2010 — for an estimated $27 million.

#share#Shaq called the choice one of his “worst business decisions.” In fact, he said he’s still not over it to this day:

“[Magic and I are] still good friends today but that was one of my worst business decisions because now, every time, on every corner in every city, every country, you see a Starbucks . . . I’m like ‘aw,’” he said.

O’Neal also told the story in his 2011 autobiography, Shaq Uncut: My Story.

“I thought it was a white person’s drink,” he wrote in the book.