NBA veteran Charles Barkley has announced that he will be retiring in two years from a popular basketball talk show because of cancel culture.
Barkley, who is the backbone of TNT’s Inside the NBA broadcast, has been making politically incorrect jokes since he joined the program in 2000. The targets of his fun have been fellow basketball stars Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith, with host Ernie Johnson being tasked with keeping the program on track.
But now, it appears producers of the Emmy-winning show have pushed the woke agenda too far.
AOC’S DEFUND-THE-POLICE PICK FOR NYC MAYOR BLASTED BY KERIK
“That’s all we ever talk about behind the scenes, like, ‘Yo, man, be careful going in this direction.’ I’m, like, ‘Yo, man, we can’t even have fun anymore,’” Barkley told Washington, D.C., radio station 106.7 the Fan. “We’ve had fun all these years, and now, all of a sudden, in the last year-and-a-half, everybody is trying to get everybody fired, and it really sucks.”
The Hall of Famer says he wants to enjoy life without the show.
“I’m trying to hang on for another couple of years until I’m 60, and then, they can kiss my a**. I’m only working until 60. I’ve already told them that,” Barkley continued. “I’m not working until the day I die. That’s just stupid. And if I don’t have enough money by now, I’m an idiot, anyway. They should fire me, anyway.”
Barkley is not one to hold his tongue. He was one of the first to criticize kneeling for the national anthem, saying he would stand. And he blasted the media for hijacking the situation to make it a nonstop dialogue.
“I’m sick of talking about kneeling. What are y’all actually going to do for the community? Because all they’re doing is making people mad, with the kneeling,” he told Alabama TV station WBRC.
Last year, he waded into the defund-the-police discourse by supporting police officers and decrying violence.
“Who are black people supposed to call — Ghostbusters? — when we have crime in our neighborhood? … We need to stop that defund-and-abolish-the-cops crap,” Barkley previously said.
Charles Barkley on defunding the police “Who are black people supposed to call Ghost Busters when we have crime in our neighborhood? We need to stop the defund or abolish the police crap” pic.twitter.com/uEIsnX729g
— gifdsports (@gifdsports) September 25, 2020
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Barkley also accused sports teams of turning social justice issues into a circus with a bombardment of messages, such as “black lives matter,” plastered on jerseys and basketball courts. America wants to watch sports to escape the stresses of the world, not engage in it, he said.
