Fox broadcaster Skip Bayless and NBA analyst Charles Barkley are two of the most prominent names in all of sports media.
Sadly, there is no love lost between them.
Barkley has spoken out on multiple occasions about how much he despises Bayless and his brand of commentary.
“There are only two people I want to kill: Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti,” Barkley said in 2005. “Everybody else, I respect their opinions. But those two guys.”
In 2017, Barkley went on the Dan Patrick Show and took it a step further. He outlined specific terms on when and how he’d off Bayless.
“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, 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.”
Well, it appears Bayless is over it. This week, he opted to address the situation with Barkley head on.
“I’m sick and tired of Charles Barkley blasting me for criticizing LeBron James,” he said. “…it’s been going on for 15 years… For years [Charles] has said he’d like to kill me. I’ve kept my mouth shut, but I’ve finally said, ‘that’s enough.’”
Bayless then added that he is genuinely confused by this beef.
“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 why exactly Charles wants to [hurt] me. … I don’t know Charles Barkley,” he said. “I’ve never had a single conversation with Charles Barkley.”
That said, Bayless feels like he knows the true cause of the issues between him and Barkley.
“This is just me, but I suspect that Charles is just jealous of me,” he said. “I suspect that he watches me nearly every day on TV, and the things I say piss him off because in the end, he wishes he had thought of that and that he could say that on TV.”
Whether you love him or hate him, Bayless is one of the biggest stars in all of sports media. There’s a reason why Nina Westbrook decided to feud with him.
— Game 7 (@game7__) March 11, 2022
And there’s also a reason why even when he does something as mundane as post provocative photos of his wife – those pictures immediately go viral.
Bayless just carries that sort of sway. And barring Barkley coming out and actually killing him, it’s hard to see that changing any time soon.
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Jennifer Withers Hoey is a former Business Development Manager who transitioned to writing about sports. With valuable connections all over the West Coast, she has used those contacts to break some of the most interesting stories pertaining to the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Ducks, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Seattle Supersonics (RIP), and more.
