Charles Barkley has a long-standing and highly-publicized love-hate relationship with NBA on TNT co-host Shaquille O'Neal. These two go at it time and time again, and for the most part, it's quite entertaining for the fans watching at home. Charles Barkley, however, has no love whatsoever for Skip Bayless. The Hall of Famer seems to have a personal vendetta against the controversial FS1 broadcaster, and Barkley has never been shy about dissing Bayless on every occasion he can.
Bayless has now spoken out about his decade-long feud with Barkley. This time around, Skip has decided to shine a light on how Chuck has literally threatened to end Bayless' life on multiple instances. Bayless claims that Barkley has taken it down a notch in this regard, and it has earned a message of thanks from the 71-year-old sports analyst:
“Charles has been taking shots at me for, I don’t know, 20 years? On various platforms including his own on TNT’s Inside the NBA,” Bayless said on a recent episode of his podcast (h/t Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing). “But at least this time, for the first time ever, Charles didn’t go ‘k-word’ on me. This time, for the first time ever, he did not say that he would like to ‘kill me,’ as he so often has.”
Skip Bayless wasn't done. He went on to reiterate Barkley's knack for issuing death threats in Bayless' direction. According to Skip, he's thankful that Sir Charles made no mention of wanting to kill him this time around:
“To his credit, this time he did refrain,” Bayless said after Barkley didn’t threaten to kill him on the All The Smoke podcast. “I greatly appreciate that. That is progress. Thank God for small favors. Thank you, Charles Barkley. I’d also like to thank Charles for so faithfully watching Undisputed. Charles Barkley might just be our biggest fan!”
There's obviously some sarcasm in Bayless' message here as he points out just how much hatred Barkley has toward him — to the point that Charles even publicly declares his desire to end Skip's life.
In true Skip Bayless fashion, he then used this narrative to try and put himself in the shoes of the victim — a man who unlawfully suffers the wrath of social media whenever he says something that the mean streets of Twitter deem to be out of line:
“And I must admit, I do love Charles on TV,” Bayless said. “I’m a big fan of Charles Barkley the commentator on Inside the NBA. But Charles, as you know, has come to the point, he can get away with saying just about anything that pops into his head and out of his mouth. That’s just Charles being Charles. … I envy that.
“I’m the polar opposite of that,I can say the smallest thing, the most innocent thing, I can tweet it or say it on Undisputed, something that is completely in bounds, completely OK, and all of a sudden one person on Twitter says, ‘can you believe Skip Bayless said that?’…All of a sudden, once again, I’m being CANCELED by that internet lynch mob…that’s my life and I’m happy to live my life, but I do envy Charles’ life.”
One thing you can say for sure is that this feud isn't going to end anytime soon. Skip Bayless did say that he's a fan of Charles Barkley, but he clearly took the opportunity to point out all of his counterpart's flaws. It will be very interesting how Chuck responds to this one.
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