“Shaquille O’Neal, this is Mama Barkley and y’all cut that sh*t out!”: When Charles Barkley’s mom hilariously scolded the Lakers legend for fighting with the Rockets superstar

Shaquille O’Neal told Conan O’Brien about how he got a call from both his own mom and Charles Barkley’s mom after Chuck and Shaq had a scuffle. 

Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley, in 2021, are known as the two old timey legends who have verbal altercations with one another every single time they step foot inside of the NBAonTNT studio. However, long before the two squared off against one another on live television, they did so in 1999 on NBA hardwood. 

Charles Barkley on the Houston Rockets was an older, more testy version of himself from years prior and Shaquille O’Neal was no pushover either in any of his 19 years in the league. So, during a game between the Lakers and the Rockets, things got a bit heated inside of the paint and it resulted in Chuck throwing the ball at Shaq’s head.

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This led to a scuffle between the two big men and also had several teammates from both squads get involved. The Hall of Famers were ejected and following the game, O’Neal downplayed the altercation, saying neither of them wanted to hit the other. 

Shaquille O’Neal reveals how Charles Barkley’s mom resolved the issue between the two. 

Shaquille O’Neal appeared on the ‘Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend’ podcast 14 months after Charles Barkley did so and naturally, talked about the latter at great length and the relationship the two share. Conan asked Shaq about the infamous ‘brawl’ between the two and the 4x champ had an interesting response.

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“I get a phone call from my mother and his (Charles’s) mother on a three-way. I was like ‘Hello?’ and she was like, ‘This is Mama Barkley and y’all cut that sh*t out’ and my mom was like, ‘Shaquille, me and Charles’s mom on the phone, y’all need to stop that.” 

Shaquille O’Neal would later reveal that his mom and Barkley’s mom, unbeknownst to him at the time, had been friends for 20 years and shared a similar, younger sibling-older sibling, relationship that the Lakers and Suns legend now share.  

It’s safe to say that given how intertwined their two families were, they were destined to be friends with one another at some point in their lives.