There's no secret that Skip Bayless and Charles Barkley aren't each other's favorite person, in the media or otherwise.
Skip addressed some of Barkley's most recent comments directed at him during his appearance on All the Smoke with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
“I don’t like the guy,” Barkley said in reference to Bayless. “Skip, to me, these guys are real people. And I don’t mind you criticizing guys, it can never be personal. One thing I hate about the media, you can tell guys they like and dislike. You can’t talk about people on television like that. You have to be fair and honest with people. You can tell who he likes, you can tell who he dislikes, because he makes it personal. Like, you can’t say bad stuff about LeBron James … Skip’s disrespect toward [LeBron], I do not like it.”
During his own podcast, Skip took the time to respond to Barkley but made an interesting confession in the process.
“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,” said Skip. “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.”
He continued: “To his credit, this time he did refrain. I greatly appreciate that. That is progress. Thank God for small favors. Thank you, Charles Barkley.”
Skip noted that despite the personal animosity between the two men that he's a fan of Barkley's professional work. “And I must admit, I do love Charles on TV,” Bayless said. “… As you know, it 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."
Bayless added, “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 cancelled by that internet lynch mob … That’s my life and I’m happy to live my life, but I do envy Charles’ life.”
Source: Youtube.com
