I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It - Charles Barkley [21]
I don’t enjoy the limelight as much as people might think. You think I want to talk to the press every day or accommodate everybody’s wishes all the time? Hell no. But I’m the luckiest damn guy in the world, and I’m not going to walk around being miserable. I’m going to have fun with this. I just believe in accommodating people whenever possible. It wears you out, having to do it all the time, especially when you’re tired or you have serious things on your mind. But I just believe that signing autographs or posing for pictures with people or sitting and talking with people who want to meet you is all part of what goes with being a public person. I don’t turn people down for autographs unless I’m eating or I’m trying to keep on schedule or there are so many that there’s just no way to sign them all.
It’s an honor to play professional sports for a living. It’s an honor to entertain people or make them feel better or whatever it is they feel when they’re watching you. And it’s an honor to be a celebrity. And I just refuse to stop living my life and enjoying great restaurants or hanging out with friends because I’m a public person.
It’s not as easy as it sounds, because I’ve been arrested I think five or six times for getting into altercations with people in public. But each and every time I’ve been acquitted. I just wish when reporters write or talk about this they would get the whole story and tell it accurately. I have never bothered anybody in public or anywhere else. I’ve never walked up to anybody and initiated anything. Famous people don’t go out to bother people; they go out to do the same things everybody else does. But there’s always some drunk with liquid courage who wants to get some attention or make you notice him or make an ass of himself with the people in your group.
You know what I’m thinking when I see one of these guys? “Hey man, it’s not my fault your damn life sucks, or is so ordinary you’re looking to spice it up by starting trouble with people minding their own business just because you’ve seen them on TV or read about ’em in the newspaper or a magazine. I’m sorry you don’t like your life, but let me enjoy mine.”
The funniest thing of all is after you’ve both been arrested and they have to come to court, they’ve got this look on their faces like, “Oh my God! All of this!” I’ve had a couple of them come to me afterward and say, “You know, I’ve had to do twenty-five interviews. All these reporters were standing outside the courthouse with notebooks and microphones! Man, I’m sorry. I was drunk that night. I didn’t realize what your life was like and how public everything about your life is.” And I’ve said, “No shit, asshole. The next time you go out and see a famous person or some public figure, leave him alone, don’t harass him. Cut out the BS.” Because they have no idea, they don’t understand the stories that are going to be in the press, that reporters will be calling them, how it’s going to look when their lives are exposed to public scrutiny.
I’ve lived my life in the public eye for twenty years, and I know that if I get arrested or something negative happens that it’s a really incredibly big deal. I know on Headline News you’ll see a picture of Barkley every eighteen and forty-eight minutes after the hour. And I’ll be the cover story of USA Today. But some fool who’s never dealt with all this, who wants to punch you because he’s drunk and he wants to brag to his boys the next day . . . when he sobers up he’s like, “You have to deal with this every day of your life?” I say, “Man, it’s not what you thought it was, is it?” It was a big news story when David Stern told me he wanted me to have a bodyguard, and I understood his concern. But I think it’s easier for a famous person to go relatively incognito, or if not incognito then to just get around more easily if you’re by yourself,