Shaq Addresses Kobe Snitching On Him

While everybody was celebrating Kobe Bryant's amazing career, Kevin Gates brought up a dark mark on Mamba's resume: The time he ratted out his Lakers teammate Shaquille O’Neal for cheating on his wife.

It happened when Kobe was being questioned by the cops after being accused of sexual assault. For seemingly no reason -- and right on the record -- Kobe explained how Shaq pays off his mistresses.

Less than a year later Shaq had forced a trade to Miami, breaking up a partnership which had won 3 NBA titles.

O'Neal addressed the incident in a notorious 2008 freestyle rap.

“I’m a horse / Kobe ratted me out, that’s why I’m gettin’ divorced / He said Shaq gave a bitch a mil / I don’t do that, because my name’s Shaquille,” ending the rhyme by repeating the refrain, “Kobe, how my ass taste?”

“There never was a hatchet. I’m not worried about that,” responds Shaq. “That’s something that happened and I didn’t think it would’ve gone on, but there was never a hatchet. As a leader, sometimes you gotta do certain things, like, if I owned The Daily Beast and you came back with a bad article and I know your potential, I’d be like, ‘That’s some bullshit,’ and you’d either punk up and quit, or say, ‘Oh, it’s bullshit?’ and write a better piece. It was my job to get everyone to play at a high level. People want things to go perfectly, and if you really look at it, three out of four championships is pretty perfect. I’m glad and honored to be the most enigmatic, controversial, and dynamic one-two punch in Lakers and NBA history. There never was a hatchet. It was two guys competing. But one thing you can say about Shaquille O’Neal is he always played the right way. That’s all I wanted to ever do, is play the right way. So I never took anything personally."

So next season we might be able to see for ourselves if there was a hatchet, and if it's been buried.