For years, Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan were the rare kind of celebrity friends whose bond seemed bigger than the NBA itself. Two 1984 draft icons, Olympic teammates, and competitive equals who stayed close long after their playing days. Barkley has said that relationship broke in 2012, when he criticized how Jordan was running the then–Charlotte Bobcats, and he has now revisited the exact moment it snapped for good.
Barkley recently recounted their final conversation during an appearance on The Tom Tolbert Show, describing a phone call that came the same night his commentary went public.
“I remember he called me that night,” Barkley said, “and he went ballistic on me, telling me, ‘Hey, you’re supposed to be my best friend, and you’re going to do that bull***t?’” Barkley’s response, he said, was that he couldn’t separate his job from his honesty. “I said, ‘Man, I got to do my job.’ And I said, ‘You haven’t done a good job as a general manager, and that’s my job to do, to be honest.’ I said, ‘How can I criticize other people and give you a pass?’”
Charles Barkley says his friendship with Michael Jordan ended when he called him out for being a bad GM on TV 😳
“He called me that night and went ballistic on me. He said ‘you supposed to be my best friend and you’re going to do that bullsh*t?’ I told him I have to do my job… pic.twitter.com/TeDgwYAqTL
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) December 21, 2025
The comments Barkley is referring to trace back to March 2012, when he went on ESPN Chicago’s “Waddle & Silvy Show” and publicly questioned Jordan’s decision-making in Charlotte. Barkley said he believed Jordan had not “done a good job” and suggested the structure around him wasn’t strong enough to push back.
“I think the biggest problem has been I don’t know if he has hired enough people around him who he will listen to,”
Barkley said at the time, adding that fame can create a circle of “yes men.”
What Barkley emphasized in the Tolbert retelling is that, in his mind, the critique wasn’t personal, it was consistent.
“I says, ‘When other guys make bad draft picks, I call them on it, too,’” Barkley added. “And he just cursed me out up and down, and we have not spoken since that night. And it was a very difficult thing for me, because the guy was like my best friend at the time.”
The fracture also reflects the complicated reality of Jordan’s second career. Jordan became majority owner of the Bobcats in 2010, later rebranding them back to the Hornets identity, and remained the franchise’s controlling figure until the sale of his majority stake in 2023.
Barkley’s argument has never been that Jordan wasn’t competitive or committed; it’s that, in Barkley’s view, the front-office results didn’t match the standard Jordan set as a player, and that saying so publicly was non-negotiable given Barkley’s role as an analyst.
What makes Barkley’s story linger isn’t the insult… sports television is full of those. It’s the cost. Barkley has described feeling sadness about losing Jordan as a friend, framing the fallout as a personal loss even as he stands by his obligation to be honest on air.
The irony is sharp: the two men built their legacies on ruthless honesty and competitive standards. The same traits that made their partnership work, Barkley suggests, were also the ones that made it impossible to survive public criticism when the subject was Jordan himself.
