Charles Barkley ‘Defies the Odds,’ Hosts 1st IG Live After Taunts on ‘Inside the NBA’

Prateek Singh | 08/03/2024
Charles Barkley ‘Defies the Odds,’ Hosts 1st IG Live After Taunts on ‘Inside the NBA’

For years Charles Barkley has been a staunch critic of the use of social media, declaring the different online platforms to be a cesspool of ‘fools’. However, recently, he caved in and finally made an Instagram profile for himself. Chuck’s profile has already garnered over 200k followers, and the numbers are going up quickly.

So, during the recent episode of Inside the NBA, his TNT coworkers decided to give Sir Charles a social media 101 lesson. One of the tasks included teaching him how to go live on Instagram. But before his colleagues taught him how to use Instagram, they did grill him for all the mean comments he’s made against social media users.

Ernie Johnson said, “If you’re a faithful follower of this program, you know that for years Chuck has expressed disdain for anyone who is on social media.” Ernie then rolled the tapes, showing Barkley the receipts. After a fair amount of grilling, it was time to get Chuck on board for the social media trends. The crew started off with the IG live topic, asking if Chuck knows what it is and how to go live on Instagram.

Unsurprisingly, the Chuckster had no idea. Teaching the 61-year-old his way around the internet was a task. However, Shaq found something mischievous in that exercise too. While Kenny and Ernie were busy simplifying Instagram for their friend, Shaq was working on another plan. He said, “But, before you go live, you gotta hit the up button and the down button and hold the power button.” But the drill wasn’t over as Chuck still had no idea what an IG live is.

Eventually, Barkley managed to go live for the first time for a brief few seconds from the TNT studio. However, the NBA legend soon ended the stream after a few seconds of testing out the process. The clip was later uploaded by Sir Charles on his Instagram page.

Charles Barkley couldn’t believe how popular Shaquille O’Neal is

Staying on the topic of Chuck joining Instagram, the TNT crew had a bar graph prepared, showing the popularity of the four panel members on Instagram. Ernie ended up in the last place with 205k followers. Barkley, who’s been there for a week or so had 212k followers at the time the show was being taped. Kenny took the 2nd spot with 691k followers, and the big man dwarfed all of their numbers with 34.3 million followers.

Chuck couldn’t believe that Shaq has over 34 million people following him. The big fella brushed off the compliment with a simple, “Something like that.” However, Barkley wasn’t okay with the fact that Kenny has close to 700k followers. He said, “Kenny, you got 691K people who think your life is interesting?!” Once Barkley gets the hang of it, he is about to be a menace on the internet, especially for the likes of Shaq and Kenny.

Post Edited By: Satagni Sikder
Charles Barkley

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Prateek Singh

Prateek is a Senior NBA Writer for The SportsRush. He has over 900 published articles under his name. Prateek merged his passion for writing and his love for the sport of basketball to make a career out of it. Other than basketball, he is also an ardent follower of the UFC and soccer. Apart from the world of sports, he has followed hip-hop religiously and often writes about the origins, evolution, and the biggest stars of the music genre.

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