Charles Barkley, Ron Artest join chorus of sports stars offering advice, support for Tiger Woods
If Tiger Woods gets nothing else this holiday season, at least he's getting plenty of advice.
Woods, 33, who has sparked an international media frenzy after admitting to cheating on his Swedish wife, Elin Nordegren, and taking an indefinite leave from the golf world, is getting advice on how to handle his public relations nightmare from some of the biggest names in sports.
NBA legend Charles Barkley -- no stranger to controversy himself -- told Jim O'Donnell of the Chicago Sun-Times in an interview published Thursday that Woods needs to apologize.
"You say you're sorry, you apologize and you go forward," Barkley told O'Donnell. "There's nothing more. I think any celebrity who pays these 'crisis management' people or PR people to speak for them is an idiot. Say your thing, say you screwed up, my bad, move on."
Barkley spoke to O'Donnell after the Basketball Hall of Famer taped a special "With All Due Respect" with host Robin Meade for the HLN network to be aired Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.
The one-hour, year-in-review show hit on a number of topics, but Barkley said the Woods scandal was the No. 1 topic of conversation during the New York taping, which also featured baseball Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley and racing legend Kyle Petty.
Barkley, who calls Woods a friend, tells O'Donnell that the world's top-ranked golfer and AP's Athlete of the Decade is "a grown man. He can do his own thing."
"But I do think there is something sinister where they pay women who have slept with a married man to keep texts and e-mails from him. That's wrong."
Barkley, who works as a basketball analyst for TNT's NBA coverage, served a three-day sentence on a drunken-driving charge in March.
"When I got my DUI, it was like -- 'Chuck, hey, man, what are you going to do? I'm like, well, I really screwed up. I'm going to say, 'My bad, I really screwed up.' Ain't nothing more. You think I'm going to pay somebody to say that for me?"
Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps waded right into the Woods scandal from a swim meet in Manchester, England, on Thursday, expressing sympathy for his fellow sports icon.
Artest was famously hit with a 73-game ban during the 2004 season after a brawl between his Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons spilled into the stands.