Charles Barkley Apologizes To Reporter After Joking That He’d Hit Her If She Were A Man

Charles Barkley is apologizing after he told a female reporter that he would hit her if she were a male.

This Wednesday, Turner Sports released a statement, which included an apology from the former NBA star who called his comment “inappropriate and unacceptable.”

Axios reporter Alexi McCammond tweeted Barkley’s comment Tuesday night from Atlanta, where she was covering the Democratic presidential debate.

”Just FYI Charles Barkley told me tonight, “I don’t hit women, but if I did, I would hit you,” and then when I objected to that, he told me I “couldn’t take a joke.”

In another tweet, McCammond broke down how their conversation went. “It was all because [Barkley] came in talking about how he loves Deval Patrick, and once someone from [Pete Buttigieg’s] campaign came around, he said he loved Pete, and I reminded him he previously said he was a Deval fan,” she wrote.

On Wednesday, Barkley said in the statement that “It was an attempted joke that wasn’t funny at all,” Barkley stated. “There’s no excuse for it, and I apologize.”

McCammond went on to tweet, “The comments Charles Barkley made to me are not acceptable. Threats of violence are not a joke, & no person deserves to be hit or threatened like that. Silence only allows the culture of misogyny to fester. And those kinds of comments don’t merit off-the-record protections.”