WATCH: Charles Barkley Gets Boo-ed by Fans While Suggesting Help for the Homeless in San Francisco

The NBA is in San Francisco for the All-Star weekend. That means that TNT’s Inside the NBA crew is also in town ahead of this evening’s matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves. And the Bay Area fans are already letting them hear it, especially Charles Barkley.

Shaquille O’Neal got the people going at the beginning of a live show at the Bay, close to the Chase Center. The big man screamed the popular quote from Gladiator to an audience brimming with excitement, “Are you not entertained?”

However, Barkley spoiled the party a little bit by bringing up the homelessness problem in San Francisco. He jumped in after Shaq and declared that he really likes San Fran, however, he does have one point of contention with the city.

“We got to do something about the homeless. They need our help. We got to clean it up a bit,” Barkley said.

Chuck declares his love for San Francisco, then wants to help the homeless people and gets booed by the crowd pic.twitter.com/KFgmNOuENi

— Oh No He Didn’t (@ohnohedidnt24) February 14, 2025

The Chuckster’s plea to help those in need didn’t sit well with the people of San Francisco. After a chorus of boos weighed in, to the surprise of all the panelists, Barkley barked back, “I said help the homeless, and some of these people so stupid they booed.”

While it seems like a rather insensitive reaction from the people, there is a legitimate reason that they may be aiming their anger at Chuck specifically.

Charles Barkley has not held back about his dislike for San Francisco

Charles Barkley often gets villainized due to his viewpoints of modern basketball, but the boos he received are not a big surprise. This most likely came due to his past comments about San Francisco, where he referred to it as a “rat-infested place” that is far from a “beautiful city.”

The 61-year-old legend even threatened to not attend the 2025 All-Star weekend on multiple occasions and has trash-talked the city’s cleanliness much like he trash-talked his opponents during his playing days. Despite his viewpoint, Chuck still made it out to the Fog City for the festivities.

But he might have to deal with the booing now that he has decided to come.

About the author

Joseph Galizia

Joseph is a Las Vegas based actor and circus performer. For the last seven years he's had the pleasure of covering sports for multiple outlets, including the Lifestyles section of Sports Illustrated. In that time, he's conducted over 50 interviews with athletes, filmmakers, and company founders to further cement his footprint in the journalism world. He's excited to bring that skillset to the SportsRush, where he'll be covering the NBA news cycle.

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