Charles Barkley is a straight shooter. He's never the type to sugarcoat whatever he has to say, and this has gotten him into quite some trouble through the years. However, there has been no bigger manifestation of the same than when Barkley's brutally honest ways resulted in losing his friendship with the great Michael Jordan.
Barkley recently guested on Tom Brady's Let's Go podcast and one of the questions the Tampa Bay Buccaneers superstar quarterback asked Sir Charles was about his regrets about being way too honest. According to Barkley, the one thing he rues the most is the fact that he is no longer in contact with MJ:
“I think probably, me and Michael [Jordan] were best friends, that's probably the most prominent thing,” Barkley said.
“Michael Jordan, losing his friendship was probably the most prominent thing that's happened to me. But I was being honest about what I thought. I said, ‘Listen, the toughest thing about Michael, he's got to put better people around him.' Because the toughest thing, when you're famous, they're on your private jet, you're buying all the drinks, you're buying all the dinners. Very few people are gonna be honest with you. And I try to surround myself with people like, hey, if I'm screwing up, please tell me.”
Barkley shared how one of his brutally honest comments drew Jordan ire's. MJ got so riled up that these two ended up ignoring each other for nearly a decade:
“And Michael got offended about something I said about him,” Barkley continued. “And we haven't spoken in probably almost 10 years. And he was my best friend at the time. And I love the dude like a brother and we're both stubborn and we haven't talked.”
Barkley himself admitted that he too is to blame for also being stubborn about the incident. Neither of them has reached out, which is a complete shame.
Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley were very fierce competitors during their time in the NBA and they had their fair share of on-court wars. However, these two became very close friends. This is why it's even more heartbreaking to learn that their feud has now extended to nearly 10 years. Let's just hope that these two living legends are able to hash out their differences sooner rather than later.
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