Gilbert Arenas did not hold back when Matt Barnes’ extortion story resurfaced on his show. The moment he learned that Barnes allegedly sent more than sixty thousand dollars to someone using artificial intelligence to scam him, Arenas reacted with a mix of shock and comedy, per Complex. He looked stunned while his co-host, Josiah Johnson, read the details out loud.

“That man just got finessed out of sixty-one thousand dollars? By an AI snow bunny? Nah, y’all playing. Nah, I don’t believe it,” Arenas said before adding that he refuses to fall for anything similar. “If I’m paying sixty thousand, I’m getting whatever you’re selling. It ain’t gonna be no ‘hey, pay me to shush.’ I’m the only person that can’t get caught by AI like that. You gotta show me something real.”

Johnson then walked through Barnes’ explanation from last month, when the former NBA player said he dealt with an AI-assisted extortion scheme that involved synthetic audio, video, and text messages. Barnes said the woman behind the plot created deep fake content that made it look like he was cheating on Anansa Sims, who accused him of being unfaithful earlier in the year.

When Johnson mentioned those details, Arenas leaned back in disbelief. “If she did all that, she got to have pictures or something now. If I’m paying sixty thousand, I’m getting whatever you selling. And it ain’t going to be no, hey… for me to shush-shush. How you get catfished like that?”

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Barnes details the threats he faced

Barnes said on Instagram that he plans to sue Tasha K for posting what he called AI-generated material. He claimed the situation started in July 2023 during a brief split with Sims. He said he stopped communicating with the woman when he reunited with Sims, yet he later received threats from different numbers promising to expose him.

Because Sims was pregnant at the time, Barnes said he paid the scammer to avoid adding stress to the situation. He shared screenshots of the interactions, including proof of sixty-one thousand in payments to someone named Zoe.

Barnes said the entire story is false and ended his explanation with a simple message. “It’s bullsh-t.”