Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan started off as two players competing for the top spot on the court. However, their relationship soon turned into a friendship as the two started hanging out off the court. Drafted in the same 1984 draft class, Barkley and Jordan both battled it out on the floor numerous times during the 80s and 90s, and the once close relationship eventually turned sour. However, it looks like fans finally would get some sense as to what caused the riff between the two.

The feud between Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan was never clear as to what caused it. Barkley has often talked about it in several interviews and podcasts. Whereas Jordan never addressed it as he liked to keep things close to his chest.  

Recently, Charles Barkley sat down with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson for an episode of ‘All The Smoke’. In the two-hour-long episode, the three talked about various things across Barkley’s career during the NBA and post-NBA as well.

Charles Barkley reveals what went wrong with Michael Jordan

Matt Barnes asked Charles Barkley if there is any light at the end of the tunnel regarding the relationship between Barkley and Jordan. To that, Barkley said, “That would be on his end, Matt. He was my best friend at the time and I love the guy and I missed the guy.” 

Charles Barkley Breaks Silence on Beef With “Best Friend” Michael Jordan That Left the GOAT Upset: “It Was Heartbreaking to Lose Michael as a Friend”

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Barkley then talked about how it’s his job to give a fair evaluation otherwise he’d be no different than Skip Bayless who often plays favorites. 

“I think I’m fair to everybody. What I said about Michael, I said, ‘I don’t know if he’s ever going to be successful because of the people around him. I think he hires too many of his friends.’ And because your friends don’t ever tell you no,” said Barkley. 

Barkley continued, “The hardest thing about being famous is because you’re paying all the bills. They’re on your private jet, and they’re not gonna tell you when you’re doing something wrong. And I said that I didn’t, because he was struggling as a general manager, running a team.”

“And I said I don’t know if he’s ever going to be successful because the people around him are never going to tell him no and like yeah, don’t draft that dude, don’t, we need to trade that dude, blah blah blah,” added Barkley.

What MJ said to Barkley

Chuck then told Barnes and Jackson what MJ said to him. Barkley continued to narrate the story, “And he went ballistic. And he called me and that’s the last thing I heard was, ‘m*****f****r, f**k you, you’re supposed to be my boy’”. 

Watch This Story – Charles Barkley makes a powerful confession about Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan

“I said, my man, I got to do my job. And we haven’t spoken since that night and that was probably close to 10 years ago,” Barkley mentioned.