Charles Barkley reveals why he ‘politely declined’ a Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding invite

It’s not very often that someone says no to Taylor Swift.  

But Charles Barkley often dares to be different. 

The NBA great and “Inside the NBA” analyst declined an invitation to the Madison Square Garden wedding of Swift and NFL tight end Travis Kelce on July 3, telling “Unfiltered with Ricky Bo and Bill Colarulo” on 97.5 The Fanatic that “I don’t go to weddings or funerals.” 

“But I did get an invite, and I politely declined because I thought it was going to be a crap show,” he told the two hosts. “I love Travis and Jason [Kelce], and I’ve only met Taylor one time, but yeah, I did get an invite. But I said, that’s just too much. I just want to hang out and play golf, and I don’t want to dress up and all that other stuff. But I appreciate the invitation; it was pretty special.”

The answer came about after Colarulo had figured that Barkley didn’t get an invite to the star-studded affair since his name didn’t pop up in any of the reports surrounding the nuptials. 

The Swift-Kelce wedding had a number of sports media personalities in attendance, including the “NFL on Fox” broadcast team’s Tom Brady, Kevin Burkhardt, Greg Olsen, Erin Andrews and Charissa Thompson, Michael Strahan, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman and Dean Blandino. 

Tony Gonzalez, Richard Sherman, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth – all of whom are part of Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” coverage team – got invites, as did ESPN’s Joe Buck, Rich Eisen, Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith. 

Strahan described the whole evening as Swift and Kelce’s “dream wedding” and that it “really was amazing” on “Good Morning America” on Saturday. 

One person who did not receive an invite was podcaster and former NFLer Will Compton, who told “Wake Up Barstool that he was “kind of flabbergasted I didn’t get that invite.”