Shaquille O'Neal says he wants his kids to earn their own money: 'We ain't rich, I'm rich'

• Shaquille O'Neal said he doesn't give his children handouts.
• The former NBA player said his children have to work for their money.

NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal ruled out any sort of financial handouts for his children during a recent interview on the finance podcast "Earn Your Leisure."

"My kids are older now. They're kinda upset with me. Not really upset, but they don't understand. I tell them all the time. We ain't rich. I'm rich," O'Neal said while breaking down his parenting philosophy on the podcast.

The former Lakers center who played for six different NBA teams and made over $10 million per season from 1999 to 2009, said that he expected his children to go to college and earn degrees, and if they happened to establish a company that he could realistically invest in only then would he give them any money.

"You gotta have bachelor's or master's [degrees], and then if you want me to invest in one of your companies, you're going to have to present it, boom boom boom, bring it to me. I'll let you know, I'm not giving you nothing," he said.

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The 49-year-old later added that the number one rule he has for his children is "education."

"I don't care if you play basketball. I don't care about none of that," he said. "Listen, I got six kids. I would like a doctor, somebody to own a hedge fund, a pharmacist, a lawyer, someone that owns multiple businesses, someone to take over my business. But I tell them I'm not going to hand it to you. You gotta earn it."

The topic of celebrity wealth and how much inheritance celebrities should leave their children has continually made headlines of late.

Earlier this year, former Bond actor Daniel Craig told Candis magazine that he finds the idea of leaving children an inheritance "quite distasteful" and therefore won't be leaving much to his kids.

"Isn't there an old adage that if you die a rich person, you've failed?" Craig said (reported via The Telegraph). "I think Andrew Carnegie [an American industrialist from the 1800s] gave away what in today's money would be about $11 billion, which shows how rich he was because I'll bet he kept some of it too."

Craig continued: "I don't want to leave great sums to the next generation. I think inheritance is quite distasteful. My philosophy is get rid of it or give it away before you go."