Despite their fierce on-court rivalry, His Airness and Sir Charles maintained a close friendship during their legendary NBA playing careers. The grand irony is that the very same close friendship would fall into disrepair once they retired from the competitive setting. But those glory days were, well… glorious. In fact, the only proof you’ll ever need of what used to exist is the following story – when Michael Jordan made it his mission to cheer up Charles Barkley using a private jet, a few rounds of golf, and a whole lot of quality time together.
After Charles Barkley was traded by the Phoenix Suns, he found himself in a rather precarious situation. The power forward’s run with this franchise was, after all, his final chance to capture an NBA championship title, meaning he had to make it count. And a playoff series loss understandably sent him down in the dumps.
“I lost one time, I’m playing for the Houston Rockets, and Michael calls me about three/four in the morning,” explains Charles Barkley.
“Whatchu doin’?’ I said, ‘Nothing. Sitting here sulking. We lost last night.’ He said, ‘I’ll pick you up in four hours.’”
“I said, ‘What?’ He says, ‘I’m coming to get you. We’re gonna go play some golf. The season’s over. You need to get away.’ And in four hours, he picked me up at the private airport right by my house on his private jet.”
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In a world where mates smokebomb when it’s their round at the pub, impromptu golf trips on a private jet represent quite the step up – although granted, it certainly helps when you’re first-class athletes like Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley with both the freedom and means to do so. As previously mentioned, however, years later, the rose petals would wilt to reveal nothing but thorns.
The major rift occurred in 2012 when Barkley expressed disapproval for how Jordan was approaching his role as franchise owner to the Charlotte Hornets. It was to the former’s belief the latter had surrounded himself with people-pleasers and sycophants, which negatively impacted his decision-making ability. Naturally, MJ took this one personally.
“Listen, if you’re famous – and Michael at one point was the most famous person in the world – everybody around you is either on the payroll or letting you buy drinks and dinner and flying around on your private jet,” Charles Barkley would later explain.
“Very few of your friends are going to be honest with you. And that’s very hard for any celebrity, but especially somebody of his stature.”
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When prompted about whether they were still friends more recently during his Back On The Record w/ Bob Costas appearance, here’s what Charles Barkley had to say:
“We’re not. And I take some responsibility for that. I criticized [him] – he was one of my best friends, and I definitely love him and miss him, to be honest with you, but I, Bob. I have to do my job. I said at the time and we can debate whether I should have said it, but I was asked a question, and I’m told always be honest at my job. I said: ‘I don’t know if Michael’s ever going to be successful [running the Charlotte Hornets] because I don’t know if he got enough strong people around him.’”
“The guy was like a brother to me for, shoot, 20-something years.”
Charles Barkley on ESPN’s The Waddle & Silvy Show
There’s a joke somewhere here about being the bigger man.
Watch Charles Barkley himself tell the story of when Michael Jordan cheered him up with an impromptu golf trip via private jet below.
