A rumor circulating online claimed that a 5-year-old boy once approached former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal at a Los Angeles diner to tell him his father was abusing his mother.

One Snopes reader even asked in an email: “Did Shaq really help a little boy save his mother from his father who had hurt his mother and taken him?”

The most prominent example of the claim originated in a Nov. 4, 2024, video posted to the Compassionate YouTube channel. The title read: “5-Year-Old Boy Whispers To Shaq In Diner – He Turns Pale & Quickly Calls 911!” and the footage had amassed more than 600,000 views as of this writing.

In the 15-minute YouTube video, the narrator said O’Neal was enjoying lunch at a restaurant called Max’s Diner when a 5-year-old boy named Kevin Hargrove approached the former NBA star and allegedly told him: “He hurt mommy really bad today.”

The narrator then said O’Neal called …