Amirah O’Neal is an American college basketball player and the eldest daughter of NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal.
She transferred to Texas Southern University in 2021 to be closer to her mother and to build her own path on her own terms, away from the intense spotlight that came with attending her father’s school.
Beyond basketball, Amirah has spoken candidly about privately struggling with isolation and her mental health during her time at LSU, an experience she eventually turned into Athlete Escape, a platform built to help other student athletes avoid going through the same thing alone.
Amirah O’Neal Biography
She was born on November 13, 2001, in Los Angeles, California. Her father is Shaquille O’Neal, the four time NBA champion and Basketball Hall of Famer, and her mother is Shaunie O’Neal, a television producer and star of Basketball Wives, who divorced Shaquille in 2011.
Amirah Sanaa O’Neal, nicknamed Mimi, is the eldest of six O’Neal children, with three brothers, Myles, Shareef, and Shaqir, and two sisters, Taahirah and Me’Arah.
Amirah attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, for three years before switching to homeschooling for her senior year during the COVID 19 pandemic.
She graduated with an emphasis in business and went on to major in Agricultural Business, with a concentration in International Business, at LSU before continuing her business studies after transferring to Texas Southern University.
Basketball Career
Amirah O’Neal built a genuinely strong high school basketball career at Crossroads School, playing as a forward.
During her junior season in 2018 to 2019, she averaged 17.2 points per game, an impressive scoring output that earned her an honorable mention on the MaxPreps California All State Girls Team.
Over her high school career, she was named to the All CIF Team multiple times, earned All Gold Coast League honors three times, and received All State recognition twice. She also competed in club basketball for LA’s Finest AAU.
Amirah committed to LSU in 2020 as a preferred walk on, choosing her father’s alma mater, where Shaquille played from 1989 to 1992 before becoming the first overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft.
Her time at LSU coincided with the height of the COVID 19 pandemic, which significantly limited team activities, practice time, and the normal college experience for incoming freshmen across the country.
During this period, Amirah privately struggled with isolation and her mental health, largely without her family’s knowledge.
She later shared, through her mother Shaunie’s public reflections, that she spent much of that time journaling her feelings rather than speaking openly about the challenges she faced, including dealing with outside criticism about her lack of playing time without the context of how limited team activities were during the pandemic.
Shaunie has said she had to gently encourage Amirah to open up before learning the full extent of what her daughter had been experiencing.
In 2021, Amirah O’Neal transferred to Texas Southern University, a historically Black university, moving closer to her mother in Houston and joining a program led by Basketball Hall of Famer Cynthia Cooper Dyke.
Her younger brother, Shaqir, made the same decision around the same time, giving the siblings a shared new chapter together.
Rather than keeping her earlier struggles private, Amirah went on to found Athlete Escape, a mental health awareness platform aimed at giving student athletes a safe space to talk openly about their challenges, so others would not feel the need to hide their own experiences as she once did.
Shaquille O’Neal’s Daughter
Amirah O’Neal is the eldest daughter of Shaquille and Shaunie O’Neal and, by most family accounts, the sibling whose playing style most closely resembles her father’s approach to the game.
Despite Shaquille and Shaunie’s divorce in 2011, both parents have continued to co parent their children and have remained actively supportive of each child’s individual path, whether that path has led to basketball or another pursuit.
The O’Neal family’s basketball lineage runs deep. Amirah’s brother Shareef played college basketball at LSU and UCLA before a heart condition significantly affected his playing career.
Her brother Shaqir played alongside her at Texas Southern. Her younger sister Me’Arah has more recently become the most decorated of the O’Neal siblings on the court, playing for the University of Florida before transferring to the University of Kentucky, where she drew national attention in 2026 after surpassing her father’s personal SEC scoring record.
Amirah has spoken supportively about her younger sister’s rise and has also spoken candidly about the unique pressure that comes with the O’Neal name, noting that people sometimes taunt or criticize her siblings at games.
