Stephen A. Smith Fires Back at Charles Barkley for Criticizing Him Over Acting Gigs: ‘Flaming Hypocrite!’

Stephen A. Smith called out Charles Barkley after the TNT commentator criticized him for taking on numerous acting gigs in recent weeks.

Barkley recently appeared on the OutKick show Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich. During their conversation, Barkley warned Smith — who appeared on episodes of Law & Order and General Hospital in the last few weeks — that he risked overexposure due to his constant presence on multiple networks. He’s also appeared on Fox News and is a regular on NewsNation — and that’s in addition to his day job on ESPN’s First Take.

On The Stephen A. Smith Show, Smith cited Barkley’s numerous commercials — as well as his colleague Shaquille O’Neal’s — to argue that Barkley was being hypocritical.

“That’s my guy, but that doesn’t mean I always agree with him,” Smith said, “and it doesn’t mean that I’m devoid of the right to call him a flaming hypocrite when it’s called upon. Do y’all have any idea how many commercials Charles Barkley does a year? He’ll tell us two. Have you seen Charles Barkley in two commercials? Are you kidding me?”

“Oh, by the way, the cat that you work with at least twice a week during the NBA season is Shaquille O’Neal. Can we count the amount of endorsements he has? How often he’s seen everywhere? What new product he’s pitching? Did you say that about him? No, you didn’t; but when it comes to me, I need to be careful,” he added.