Charles Barkley’s media retirement tour continued as he joined Adam Schein on Mad Dog Sports Radio on Wednesday to throw shade — this time at Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who is in the final act of his likely Hall of Fame career.
Barkley called out Rodgers for how he’s publicly spoken about his former romantic relationships in recent months.
“But I tell you what though, I’m not gonna bury everybody going out the door like Aaron,” Barkley said of his own retirement. “I’m not gonna burn every bridge and talk bad about all my exes on my way out the door like he’s doing.”
Rodgers aired out his grievances with several comments about ex-fiancée Shailene Woodley and ex-girlfriend Danica Patrick on fellow Pittsburgh teammate Cam Heyward’s “Not Just Football” podcast in September.
Rodgers said on the podcast that Woodley left him for another man in 2022.
“I proposed to Shailene and she said yes. Now, she maybe felt like she was forced to make a decision. She could have said no,” he said. “A couple days after that she tells me, ‘Before we get married, I gotta go f–k this guy,’ and I’m like — because her story is that I ruined her life and gave her crazy depression because I left her. But in actuality, she told me that and then she took off the ring by March — I proposed in December — and we had a couple of times where we tried to get reunited and nothing ever happened. There wasn’t even a relationship in 2022 to break off.
“She literally told me, ‘I don’t want to be with you’ after we tried some reconciliation in 2021. There’s just a lot of narrative out there that isn’t true.”
The 42-year-old quarterback also sent shots toward two former Packers teammates, Greg Jennings and Jermichael Finley; Rodgers spent the earlier half of his career with both pass catchers and won a Super Bowl with them.
Barkley is no stranger to airing dirty laundry, as the longtime “Inside the NBA” analyst showed his disdain for TNT Sports executives when the network lost NBA media rights as the popular show landed at ESPN. He has continued to make it clear that he thinks the relationship was mishandled.
When Schein asked Barkley, who has previously said he would retire only to return, if he’d officially be done after this season, Barkley repeatedly confirmed that this would be his final year on “Inside the NBA.”
