Born in Brooklyn, New York, Shad is of Haitian and Curaçaoan descent. His father, Ben Gaspard, is a former street enforcer for street gangs and personal security guard in the early 1970s, who worked for gangster Frank Lucas and now owns Mcfay Contracting Inc. Shad is the third of six siblings.

Gaspard then decided to become a professional Wrestler. He qualified for the finals of the reality television program Tough Enough 2 in 2002, but was disqualified and replaced after failing a physical.

Gaspard debuted in OVW in 2003 under the ring name "Da Beast", eventually joining Kenny Bolin's Bolin Services stable. Originally, he acted as Bolin's personal enforcer, until he was placed into a tag team with Carlos Colón, Jr. in February 2004.

After Colón left OVW in October 2004, Gaspard left "Bolin Services" and formed several short lived tag teams with Osama, Mike Mondo, Ken Doane, and Ryan Wilson, before he began wrestling under his real name as a singles Wrestler. In June 2005, he was signed to a developmental contract by World Wrestling Entertainment.

In early 2006, during his feud in OVW with CM Punk, Gaspard was joined by the Neighborhoodie and formed a new tag team known as "The Gang Stars". The new team won the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship once, before they were called up to the Raw (WWE brand) brand roster as Cryme Tyme. On September 4, 2006, a series of vignettes began airing on Raw, hyping the debut of Cryme Tyme. On the October 16 episode of Raw, Cryme Tyme debuted and defeated then-World Tag Team Champions, the Spirit Squad (Mikey and Johnny) in a non-title match.

Gaspard, along with Paul wrestled at the Jersey All Pro Wrestling 10th Anniversary Show on October 27, 2007. Wrestling as "Crime Time", they defeated the "Dirty Rotten Scoundrelz".

Shad and JTG returned to WWE on the March 31, 2008 episode of Raw, as Cryme Tyme where they defeated Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch in their first televised WWE match in nearly 6 months.

On April 15, 2009, Cryme Tyme were drafted to the SmackDown brand as part of the 2009 Supplemental Draft. Shad made his debut along with JTG, hosting a dance contest between Layla and Eve Torres. He and JTG made their in-ring debut as they teamed with John Morrison to defeat Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas and Ricky Ortiz. After defeating The Hart Dynasty on the July 31 episode of SmackDown, Cryme Tyme lost a Unified WWE Tag Team Championship match against Jeri-Show (Chris Jericho and Big Show) at SummerSlam on August 23.

Gaspard is married to fitness model and athlete Siliana Gaspard. The couple had their first child, a boy, in April 2010.

On March 5, 2011, Gaspard was arrested by police in Columbus, Ohio for having allegedly refused the commands of a police officer and then resisting arrest for jaywalking. He was later cleared of all charges in July 2011.

In January 2012 he was advertised as appearing on BET television series The Game, as well as TV Land original situation comedy, The Exes in October 2012. He is also working on other upcoming films. Besides wrestling and acting, Gaspard also does modeling and works on a comic book.

In 2013 Gaspard performed in the stage adaptation of "Pugilist" as Jack Johnson, the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915), depicting the fighters rise to the world heavyweight championship, and his tragic fall.

Gaspard, wrestled at the NWA Pro on 2012. It was announced on June 19, 2014 that Shad and JTG were looking for booking interests labeled now as the slightly altered "Crime Time". JTG and Shad Gaspard wrestled the first match on their Crime Time World Tour on August 23, 2014 for the Warriors of Wrestling promotion in Staten Island as Crime Time.

On December 11, 2016, Gaspard prevented the armed robbery of a Coral Springs, Florida gas station when he was approached by an intoxicated man who was intent on robbing the clerk. Gaspard shoved the man, took away his gun, and restrained him in the parking lot until police arrived.

When he was five years old Shad’s father began training him in boxing, and at age eight he began training in a mixture of different martial arts such as Judo, Jeet Kune Do, Kickboxing, and Muay Thai. As a student, Shad quickly developed into an aggressive fighter, winning many fight tournaments as an amateur. His mother Ingrid Chittick gave him the nickname “Beast” as a result of his aggressiveness. At the age of sixteen, Shad began prize fighting for promoter Hardbody Harrison, a former World Championship Wrestling Wrestler and FX Tough Man Champion, in bar fighting tournaments such as boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts (MMA), and tough man competitions. Even though Shad was only sixteen years old, he competed against adults who were older than he was by five to twenty years, due to his large size. Gaspard holds won-loss records as a No Holds Barred fighter (35–7) and an amateur boxer (57–26).