"Called me ugly": Shaquille O'Neal fires back at Charles Barkley's banter about his top 10 sexiest bald men ranking

Two months ago, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith congratulated Shaquille O'Neal for making it into the top 10 sexiest bald men by GQ South Africa. The list included the likes of Prince William, Jason Statham, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Michael Jordan. After congratulating him, the two proceeded to belittle his ranking in the survey.

A few days ago, Barkley doubled down on his trolling of O’Neal when he appeared on “The Late Night Show With Stephen Colbert.” He was asked by the host if he thought the LA Lakers legend was sexy. “Chuck” couldn’t disagree more passionately with his reply.

Shaquille O'Neal, in “The Big Podcast with Shaq,” wanted to get back at Barkley. He told comedian Gary Owen this:

“I need your help. We’re gonna watch a clip of what Charles Barkley said about me and I need you to hit him with four or five ugly jokes because he said I was ugly.”

Owen’s response stunned Shaquille O'Neal:

“No, but you are ugly so I agree with him.”

Gary Owen promptly took back his comments and assured O’Neal that he was only joking.

When Shaquille O'Neal first bragged about the list, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith did a little research. When the two found out it was GQ South Africa, Smith accused Shaq of bribery. The former Houston Rockets point guard couldn't believe he made it to the list on sheer looks alone.

“Chuck,” meanwhile, had an even bolder claim than O’Neal:

"Dude, I'm one of the ten sexiest men in America, not South America."

View on TikTok

O’Neal wasn’t bothered by the belittling of what he had accomplished. He posted on TikTok a clip of the exchange and captioned it:

“My new name is SEXY NUMBER 9”

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Shaquille O'Neal doesn’t want Charles Barkley to comment on his looks

Shaquille O'Neal can be quite petty when it comes to exchanges with Charles Barkley. In response to "Chuck" calling him “ugly,” O’Neal made this clear to Gary Owen:

“I don’t want Charles Barkley talking about my beauty. I don’t. I don’t want Charles saying I’m attractive. Let’s just save that for somebody else.”

The comedian came up with yet another answer that took O’Neal by surprise and eventually had the former Miami Heat star shaking in laughter:

“Yeah, save it for Dwight Howard.”

Since Shaquille O’Neal joined the “NBA on TNT” broadcasts in 2011, he has repeatedly taken shots at Charles Barkley’s appearance. He has often cited that he doesn’t want to become “OTBB,” which he created to mean “Over-the-belt-Barkley.” As far as the former Miami Heat star is concerned, he doesn’t want to look like “Chuck.”

Now, O’Neal is prohibiting one of his closest friends from saying something about how he looks.