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Hall of Famer Charles Barkley has been in the media spotlight since he was a teenager, but he has managed to keep his personal life out of the public eye.
He played basketball for Leeds in high school and then for Auburn for three years in college. He dominated in the NBA for 16 seasons and then took up a TV analyst role for TNT after his retirement.
However, unlike most star kids and star wives, his family leads a relatively private life. He has been married to Maureen Blumhardt since 1989 and has one child named Christiana Barkley.
Who is Charles Barkley's wife Maureen Blumhardt?
Unlike most athletes, Charles Barkley has just one child with his longtime wife Maureen Blumhardt.
According to Cheatsheet, they met in Pennsylvania in the 1980s, back when Chuck was a star with the Philadelphia 76ers and Blumhardt was working as a legal aid and a part-time model. Both lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, at the time and tied the knot in 1989; their daughter Christiana was born the same year.
They met in a Pennsylvania restaurant called City Avenue and fought against all odds to have an unconventional interracial marriage in the 1980s. They have managed to keep their relationship private, making only occasional public appearances. Barkley has no social media presence, while Blumhardt has a humble 2.2K followers on Twitter.
Blumhardt worked as a model early in her career. She promoted and appeared in an advertisement for an exercise machine called Noblerex K-1. She is also interested in philanthropy and social welfare. She's a lifetime honorary member at Fresh Start Women's Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps women turn their lives around and start afresh.
Charles Barkley spoke about his 'secret' to a happy marriage on the Volume Network:
"Well, No. 1 I’m gone a lot. That always helps," the 11-time All-Star joked. "I think the main reason is she accepts my flaws and all. She doesn’t judge me, accepts me how I am; she’s a great mother."
Maureen once revealed to The Philadelphia Inquirer that Charles is a neat freak:
"Last week, Charles got up in the middle of the night and started vacuuming. I told him he was going a little overboard."
Their daughter got married in March 2021, and Barkley was apparently quite excited about it. He was absent on Inside the NBA on TNT and talked about it a lot on the show.
Christiana married Ilya Hoffman, the founder of tech company DemandByte. Hoffman reportedly didn't know much about her superstar father at the time. In an interview with The New York Times, he said:
"I’m not a sports fan. I don’t watch sports. I don’t play sports. .… I said, 'Oh, you mean the guy from 'Space Jam'? That's where I knew him from. Some people might have been like, 'Oh my god, Charles Barkley.' To me it was like, 'Look at this amazing girl.'"
Guess the Lakers players!
