NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal Is Releasing Super-Sized Gummy Candies

You’ve never seen a longer Wikipedia page than Shaquille O’Neal’s. 

Though he is described in a recent press release as “an entrepreneur, sports analyst, DJ, restaurateur, and brand ambassador,” that description doesn’t even include the fact that he’s also a four-time NBA champion, TV and film actor, philanthropist, and recipient of multiple degrees. 

Now, in 2024, the multihyphenate Shaq has added another title to his CV: candy innovator. He has partnered with The Hershey Company to release Shaq-A-Licious XL Gummies, a line of fruity candies that come in multiple shapes — including his own face.

Shaq-A-Licious XL Gummies will come in two varieties: The Sour bag will contain pineapple, mixed berry, and watermelon flavors in various shapes that each pay homage to O’Neal’s career, such as shamrocks for his time on the Boston Celtics. The Original bag, which includes orange, berry punch, and peach flavors, will feature gummies “all delivered in bites of the legendary player’s head,” as the press release puts it.  

O’Neal tells Food & Wine that he’s simply “the biggest kid in the candy store” and wanted to create a product that reflects that. Thus, a lot of the ideation around these new sweets was undertaken by O’Neal himself. It was his idea, for example, to mold the gummies into the shape of his own head. Why? Catharsis, maybe.

“All the people who are mad at me — or mad at anybody — just bite my face off!” O’Neal says. “I don’t mind. It’s all fun.” He notes that his favorite flavor is the berry punch, but he’s partial to the sour bag as well. 

If candy seems like a random addition to the Shaq portfolio, it certainly makes sense when you consider O’Neal’s roots. Having grown up on a military base in Germany, the land of Haribo, Kinder, and other legendary confectioners, O’Neal was surrounded by great candy all the time.

“I remember when they came out with the Coke-flavored gummies, I thought that was the best in the world,” he recalls. Even at an Oktoberfest celebration one year, where the main event was beer, O’Neal remembers the self-serve candy area best of all: “I was in heaven. There was so many gummies, I couldn’t even believe it.” 

“Candy was my way of knowing that I was doing good,” he says. “My father would give me a dollar or two, and we lived on a post where they didn’t charge tax, so I was probably able to get two to three more. Always chocolate and, living in Germany, always gummy bears.” 

This fondness for sugar brought O’Neal in contact with The Hershey Company, and the collaboration proceeded from there.

The name, too, was his idea, though it follows the conventions we’ve come to expect from O’Neal at this point — the Papa Johns Shaq-a-Roni pizza, the Burger King Shaq Pack, and the immersive Shaqtoberfest Halloween experience have firmly established the pattern. It probably would’ve been strange if these gummies weren’t called Shaq-A-Licious. 

Shaq-A-Licious XL Gummies are available this month at major retailers nationwide, including 7-Eleven, Walmart, and Target. Starting in October, they’ll be available in Canada as well. Finally, we can chomp down on an NBA player’s face again (an opportunity we haven’t had since Trolli discontinued James Harden’s Weird Beards). 

“I just try to bring fun to everything that I do, because life is all about fun,” O’Neal tells Food & Wine. “I just want to be the guy that makes people laugh.”