{"id":646288,"date":"2026-05-16T07:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/646288\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T07:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T07:27:13","slug":"charles-barkley-dunks-on-homophobia-after-former-net-jason-collins-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/646288\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley dunks on homophobia after former Net Jason Collins’ death"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley honored former Nets center Jason Collins for his courage after the NBA\u2019s first openly gay player<\/a> died from brain cancer<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The outspoken 16-year pro basketball veteran and longtime broadcaster also decried homophobia <\/a>during Wednesday night\u2019s \u201cInside the NBA\u201d program.<\/p>\n

Collins, who helped lead the New Jersey Nets to the NBA Finals in 2002<\/a> and 2003<\/a>, a decade before the team moved to Brooklyn, came out as gay in 2013. The following year he became the first publicly gay male athlete to play professionally in a major U.S. sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf another guy did it, it would still be a big deal \u2014 because we live in a homophobic society and that\u2019s unfortunate,\u201d Barkley declared on ESPN.<\/p>\n

According to Sir Charles, Collins may have been the first admittedly gay player in the NBA, but it\u2019s unlikely he\u2019s the only homosexual pro athlete fans have cheered for over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody who thinks we ain\u2019t got a bunch of gay players in all sports, they\u2019re just stupid,\u201d the 63-year-old former hoops forward said. \u201cThere is such an atmosphere toward the gay community, and that\u2019s what\u2019s really unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The website Out Athletes reported in 2024 there were nearly 4,600 active players in major U.S. men\u2019s sports and none of them<\/a> were known to be openly gay. Meanwhile, dozens of female athletes in the WNBA<\/a> are openly homosexual.<\/p>\n

Barkley offered advice<\/a> to gay athletes finding themselves at a crossroads.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you,\u201d he recommended. \u201cGay people have the right to do what they want to do. It\u2019s nobody\u2019s business at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley honored former Nets center Jason Collins for his courage after the NBA\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[351,278835,101076,203285,3026,355,99],"class_list":["post-646288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-charles-barkley","tag-gay-athlete","tag-inside-the-nba","tag-jason-collins","tag-lgbtq","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}