During his 16 years in the NBA, Charles Barkley made a lot of money, enough to save his family from their financially troubled past. After his retirement from the league, he became an analyst for TNT on the hit show, ‘Inside the NBA’. His work there over the past two decades, coupled with his NBA salaries, has raised his net worth to $60 Million. Going back to his past during a recent interview with 60 Minutes, the Phoenix Suns legend delved into his traumatic experiences growing up. He revealed how his biological father abandoned his family, and even managed to deliver a lie that hurt Chuck for years.
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Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal come from similar backgrounds, so it makes sense why the co-panelists of Inside the NBA are so close. Both individuals come from traumatic, poverty-stricken childhoods where their biological fathers failed to step up. Fortunately for O’Neal, he had his stepfather, Sergeant Phillip A. Harrison to nurture him.
Charles Barkley opens up about his father, and how he was disappointed in him
During his interview with 60 Minutes, Charles Barkley went into full detail about his childhood, talking about the good along with the bad. When the topic of his father came up, a grim expression reflected upon his face. Here is what Barkley went to say on the matter.
“I was very angry (my father left us when I was a year old). And I was even angrier because he kept saying he was going to send us money, and he didn’t do it. My mom and grandmother were working their behinds off. And the thing that was really bad about it was that I was standing by the mailbox, like once every three or four months (waiting for the check). But it never came.”
Despite being bogged down by the irresponsibility of his biological father, Barkley’s childhood wasn’t all bad. He and his friends shared tales of how Barkley’s grandmother was a strong woman, who influenced the NBA legend the most. Interestingly, to make ends meet, she also sold alcohol at their home, while letting customers play cards. ‘The Chuckster’ also revealed that she would patrol the house with a firearm in her hand to make sure that peace was kept in the house.
To the outside world, that alone sounds absolutely bizarre. However, the way Charles laughed while talking about the story makes it likely that he looks back at those times fondly.
Barkley’s relationship with his father improved in the 2010s
Similar to one of his closest friends Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley eventually met his biological father in the late 2010s, as he revealed in an interview with Graham Bensinger in 2016.
“I want to make this clear, we’re great today. We both made some mistakes. I shouldn’t have been angry at him. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean you need to get mad at your dad. So, I was wrong on that point. But, he could’ve been a better father, but today we’re cool.”
It takes quite a bit of maturity and strength to not only move past such a thing in one’s life but to also forgive the party that hurt you. However, that kind of action is hardly out of character for Charles Barkley. No matter how overly candid and even harsh he can be at times, he has always been a level-headed human being.
