Charles Barkley With Hair: Has The TNT Legend Always Been Bald?

Charles Barkley has been sporting the bald look since the early 1990s. The Hall of Famer has been on TV without hair on his scalp for so long that some fans have wondered if he ever had any. Given that he decided to shave his hair off for good and embrace the bald look over 30 years ago, fans wouldn’t be amiss to assume that his hair follicles have been empty since birth. However, Barkley did have a full head of hair until the late 1980s.

Barkley sported a short hair look in college and his early years in the NBA, but his hairline began receding soon after he was drafted. Each season, the dominant forward’s hair was thinner than the previous campaign, and by 1991, he embraced having a shaved head and hasn’t looked back since. While he adopted the bald look, Barkley wished he didn’t have to.

During an episode of Inside The NFL earlier this year, Channing Crowder challenged the Hall of Famer to a bet on the result of the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. The retired NFL star told Barkley that if the Chiefs win, he would have to grow his hair out. The 61-year-old declined it on the technicality that he couldn’t grow hair and responded,

“First of all, everybody I know who’s bald, we started going bald. Everybody wants hair… Nobody wants to really be bald. If everybody could grow hair, they would.” 

While Barkley has been bald since 1991, he sported a mustache until 1996, before getting rid of it too. He never contemplated compensating for his hair loss with a beard and even roasted LeBron James and Ernie Johnson in 2018 for doing that once the bald patches on their head became difficult to hide. Barkley added that he took going bald “like a man.” But despite being in the same boat as some other bald NBA stars, he did not refrain from trolling them for losing their hair.

Charles Barkley roasting NBA star for being bald

Despite having no hairline, Charles Barkley doesn’t shy away from joking about NBA stars’ haircuts. Last year, he viciously roasted Boston Celtics star Derrick White’s receding hairline and called him “Stephen A. Smith,” due to the similarities in the sizes of their foreheads.

It’s unclear if Barkley’s comments played a role, but White has also embraced the bald look this season. While the Celtics star gave up quickly, LeBron James has been enduring jokes about his receding hairline for two decades. The four-time MVP has been balding pretty much since his rookie season, but 21 years in, he’s yet to fully embrace the bald look.

Barkley has been trolling him incessantly over his receding hairline since the bald patches became visible almost two decades ago. However, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar continues to delay the inevitable. James has been defiant and might even get his hairline repaired after retirement, but until he doesn’t go bald or gets a transplant, Barkley will continue joking about it every chance he gets.