Cancel culture has taken yet another victim: Charles Barkley.
“Inside the NBA” star Charles Barkley, the face of the show for the last 21 years, announced that he will be leaving the show when he turns 60 thanks to cancel culture.
“It’s gotten so out of hand right now, I couldn’t imagine having to watch myself,” he said. “You can’t even have fun nowadays without these jackasses trying to get you canceled and things like that.”
Barkley said he will remain on the show for the next two years before calling it quits, the Daily Wire reports.
“[I’m] just having fun, talking about sports,” Barkley said. “I’m trying to hang on for another couple years until I’m 60, and then they can kiss my ass. I’m only working until 60. I’ve already told them that. We can’t even have fun anymore. We’ve had fun all these years, and now all of a sudden in the last year and a half, everybody’s trying to get everybody fired, and it really sucks.”
Barkley, often known for his humor, said the goal now is to not offend anyone.
“All we ever talk about behind the scenes now is, ‘Yo man, be careful going in this direction.’ We can’t even have fun anymore,” Barkley said. “A lot of our bosses are cowards.”
“One of my favorite phrases is ‘we agree to disagree.’ I’m not mad, I don’t want you to be mad,” Barkley said. “We just disagree. But unfortunately, it’s been happening for a couple of years, if people disagree with you, they’re going to get fired. They’re coming for your head.”
Barkley’s famous running joke is about the women that live in the city of San Antonio. It’s always been known as a joke, with the residents of the city getting in on it, too.
But, TNT won’t let him use the joke anymore.
“If you crack a joke the wrong way, they’re like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, you crossed the line.’ I mean, they won’t even let me talk about San Antonio anymore when I’m always talking about their big ole women down in San Antonio. They’re like, ‘Charles, we got one lady [who] wrote an article.’ I’m like, ‘first of all, I didn’t call anybody personally fat in San Antonio. I was just joking around...We’ve been having fun with this for probably 10 to 15 years. We go to San Antonio, the people are having a blast with it. The people in San Antonio had t-shirts made up.”