Skip Bayless is widely viewed as one of the most popular, but also one of the most controversial sports analysts in the business. There’s no doubt that he has some extremely strong and sometimes hot takes on sports, whether it be American football or basketball.
Some of Skip Bayless’ takes have earned him criticisms from fellow analysts and players. One of the people that has been extremely outspoken about criticizing Skip Bayless is basketball Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley. Bayless has previously claimed that Barkley is jealous of him.
On a recent episode of his podcast, Skip Bayless revealed that he has no idea why Charles Barkley has a beef with him. He claimed that he has “never written or said a single word, anything negative” about Charles Barkley, which would make Barkley want to reduce him to his “DNA sample”. Bayless also challenged Barkley to join him on his show for a debate. Liam McKeone of The Big Lead relayed Bayless’ words.
To my knowledge, I have never written or said a single word, anything negative, about Charles that would make him want to somehow reduce me to my DNA sample… There’s no backstory here. There’s no hidden agenda. I didn’t somehow do him wrong in an interview situation, I didn’t double-cross him. I don’t know anything about anything that could have set off Charles as far as what I’ve said, written, or done.”
“I challenge Charles again to join me on this platform. We can have a whole hour to go back and forth so I can better understand why he wants to kill me. And who knows? Maybe I can convince him I’m not worth killing.”
The reason that Skip Bayless is talking about Charles Barkley potentially hurting him is due to Barkley’s previous comments where he said he’d “kill” Bayless “live on national television” if he got a disease and was going to die. There’s no doubt that is a somewhat controversial thing to say. Des Bieler of the Washington Post relayed the news.
Charles Barkley: “You know what we should do for ratings? If I get a disease and I’m gonna die, how about you get Skip Bayless in here, and I’ll kill him live on national television,”
Dan Patrick: “I like it.Like pay-per-view.”
Charles Barkley: “No, no, no. Just get him in here.Only when I know I’ma die. … Because I just want to get Skip Bayless in a room one time and just beat him like a dog.”
Dan Patrick: “So you’d kill him,”
Charles Barkley: “Yes. Only if I knew I was gonna die. Not if I’m gonna live, because I don’t wanna go to prison. Because like Mahorn says, ‘They would love you in prison.’”
The DNA comments from Skip Bayless were clearly a reference to Charles Barkley’s comments about Bayless in 2013, where he said that people would “need DNA to find out” who he was if he could get “Skip Bayless in a room”. This was also mentioned in the article by Bieler.
In 2013, on the set of TNT’s NBA show, he said, “If I could get Skip Bayless in a room, you’d need DNA to find out who he was.”
It is clear that Charles Barkley finds Skip Bayless’ analysis distasteful. There’s no question that there are times when Skip Bayless’s criticism towards players seems ridiculous. But that doesn’t mean that Barkley should want to hurt Bayless. Skip Bayless has claimed that he has “no idea exactly why” Charles Barkley would want to hurt him, as he has “never had a single conversation” with him. An article by Fox Sports relayed those words. (4:51)
“This 15-year onslaught has amazed me, it has amused me, but it has always confounded me because for the life of me, I have no idea exactly why Charles wants to [hurt] me. … I don’t know Charles Barkley. I’ve never had a single conversation with Charles Barkley.”
It remains to be seen if Charles Barkley will end up responding to Skip Bayless’ statements about their feud. There is no doubt that Skip Bayless has made some pretty big claims on this subject recently.
Hopefully, we see the two resolve their beef at some point in the future. Skip Bayless is clearly trying to understand Charles Barkley’s animosity towards him, and we’ll see if he gets clarity in the future.
