“Shaq Is Ugly in South Africa and in America”: Charles Barkley Did Not Hold Back While ‘Complimenting’ TNT Co-Analyst Shaquille O’Neal

Credit: USA TODAY Sports

Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal never miss an opportunity to roast each other publicly. Now, sometimes Barkley can take things a little too far with the roasting. That is exactly what happened in this hilarious clip recently resurfaced by the NBA on TNT on X(Twitter). In the video, the Chuckster seemed a little salty about his co-analyst’s recent achievement, which prompted his tirade on Shaq’s aesthetics.

During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Charles Barkley was asked if he thought his TNT co-analyst Shaquille O’Neal was “sexy or not”. Barkley, who was pretty quick to disagree, let the Late Night host know, “Hell No.”

Subsequently, Sir Charles proceeded to tell a story about Shaq’s looks, which was the hot topic of discussion. “So Shaq came to work about a month ago, and there was an article came out that he was the ninth sexiest bald man in the world…First of all, he is not sexy at all. He is ugly. [Secondly,] He said it was GQ Magazine and he was bragging about it. And then we did a little research, it was South Africa GQ.”

Meanwhile, another guest on the show, Gayle King, tried to defend Shaq by hinting that Chuck was jealous of the big man. However, Barkley was not having any of it. He went on to roast his 7-foot friend even more,

“First of all, he is ugly in South Africa and America. Shaq is ugly in all fifty states.”

But it wasn’t all insults, as Charles did lay out a few compliments for the big guy as well. While talking to King, Barkley let the audience know that, “I love the big fella. He is a great guy, but he is not attractive.”

The controversy seemed to have begun when an article from GQ South Africa ranked Michael Jordan( #5) and Shaquille O’Neal(#9) among the 10 hottest bald men alive. Barkley, who himself is a part of the “bald club”, seemed to have taken his omission from the list “personally”. The Chuckster even took digs at both of his friends as the show progressed, telling his host, “Hey, I’m not great lookin’ but I’m better lookin’ than Michael Jordan… and I’m damn sure better lookin’ than Shaquille O’Neal.”

Meanwhile, Shaq is not far behind as well when it comes to roasting Barkley’s looks. He revealed after his weight loss last year that his journey was motivated by the desire to not end up looking like the former Phoenix Suns star.

Charles Barkley loves to poke the Bear

Charles Barkley might be one of the few men on planet Earth who is genuinely ‘not scared’ of Shaquille O’Neal. As the duo has grown closer over the decade, Barkley has always made sure to check his ‘little bro’ and that usually comes in the form of a roast.

But after decades of creative digs and pranks, Charles seems to have settled in on the age-old insult of “you ugly“. Back in 2022, Barkley even interrupted his co-analyst Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith to make this point on national television.

While Smith was making a point about Shaq, Charles cut the Rockets legend,

” Shaq you have always been…ugly, and big and fuggly.”

The comedic timing on the dig was so good, that it even left Shaq bursting into tears. But among all the single word/line roasts that Barkley has launched on Shaq, none has been more brilliant than when Charles compared Shaq to Shrek.

The hilarious take from Barkley left the entire TNT set in splits, while Shaq looked visibly annoyed by the hilarious take from Charles. With both Shaq and Charles having recently signed major contracts with Turner Media, it’s fair to say that fans will be getting a steady diet of roasting from the duo, for years to come.