ESPN analyst Charles Barkley has dared the network to fire him after a rude on-air comment about Cardi B’s appearance landed him in hot water.
Barkley make the viral joke during Game 3 of the NBA Finals earlier this week as the New York Knicks took on the San Antonio Spurs. While Cardi B took the court at New York’s Madison Square Garden for a halftime show, it wasn’t her performance that caught his attention.
“I don’t know if those Bs. Those might be Cardi Ds. I’m pretty sure those aren’t Bs. She’s got the wrong initials,” Barkley said, clearly referring to the rapper’s cleavage.
The former NBA star then spoke about the comment on The Dan Patrick Show. Asked if he has ever been told by management to tone it down, Barkley said: “I’m hoping they fire me.”
“I got six or seven years left on my contract that they know I’ve got no chance of doing. I would love for them to fire me and have to pay me for the next six or seven years,” he continued.
“I was talking to my agent. I was like, ‘What can I do to get fired, but they’d have to pay me for the whole six, seven years?’ I would love to get fired, I’m not gon’ lie.”
Barkley continued: “There’s zero chance that I’mma be working the next six, seven years. Zero. So I know if they fired me, they’d have to pay me all of those years. And I heard through the grapevine that I make great money; so thank goodness for that.”
He also had a clear message for those who were offended by his joke.
“C’mon, man. People can’t take a joke. They can kiss my ass,” he said defiantly.
“I appreciate and love all the support I’ve gotten all these years, but anybody [that] thinks everybody likes them, they a fool. So, if people don’t like me or don’t have a sense of humor, they can kiss my ass. My whole ass, not just one cheek, the whole ass.”
Barkley’s on-air remark prompted laughter among the broadcasters, with his co-host Ernie Johnson saying, “I don’t know who said that, but I know it wasn’t me.”
However, it was not met kindly online.
“The man is a grown adult on national television reducing a performer to her body like it’s 1995. It’s not funny, it’s not clever, it’s just sad,” one person wrote on X while another said, “I just lost all respect for those guys”
“These old men cracking jokes at the performer’s expense felt so inappropriate …. GROW UP OLD MEN,” someone else chimed in.
For her part, Cardi B appeared to take it in stride, retweeting a post on X with the caption: “‘Cardi D’ is trending at #7 on X/Twitter following Charles Barkley’s joke during Cardi B’s #NBAFinals halftime show.”
The Knicks will look to win the championship Saturday night in San Antonio.