Ron Artest fired back at Charles Barkley on Friday after the TNT analyst criticized the Lakers forward by saying he could become a distraction to the team.

Barkley made his comments after TNT did a prerecorded segment on Artest's off-court activities that aired Thursday night during the telecast of an NBA doubleheader.

Artest said Barkley took his "shine," meaning his publicity.

"That whole spotlight they did on me, he just took that away," Artest said about the TNT interview.

Artest has spent time rapping, working on his Twitter account, interacting with fans and attending charity events and other entertainment ventures. He took exception to what Barkley said, pointing out that some of his rapping was about abuse of women in Afghanistan.

"It was something I felt was worth speaking about, because he was like, 'It is a distraction,' " Artest said. "I'm like, 'I do a lot of good things. I've been with my wife since I was like 15 years old. What can you say about that?' I'm still with my high school sweetheart in the NBA doing videos with pretty women. I'm an entertainer. I'm not going anywhere. I think that's successful. I think kids can learn from that."

Artest said the segment TNT did on him was "great."

It's just that Artest apparently didn't like some of what Barkley had to say.