Basketball great and NBA analyst Charles Barkley issued an apology on Wednesday morning for his comments telling Axios reporter Alexi McCammond, “I don’t hit women, but if I did, I would hit you.”
McCammond shared the story about her encounter on Twitter on Tuesday night.
“Just FYI Charles Barkley told me tonight ‘I don’t hit women but if I did I would hit you,’ and then when I objected to that he told me I ‘couldn’t take a joke.’”
Turner Sports issued a statement on behalf of Barkley, saying, “My comment was inappropriate and unacceptable. It was an attempted joke that wasn’t funny at all. There’s no excuse for it and I apologize.”
McCammond responded to the statement by tweeting: “The comments Charles Barkley made to me are not acceptable. Threats of violence are not a joke, & no person deserves to be hit or threatened like that. Silence only allows the culture of misogyny to fester. And those kinds of comments don’t merit off-the-record protections.”
Information from Espn.com and SI.com contributed to this report.
