Former NBA star Matt Barnes says he can’t believe he has to clear the air on the latest rumor circulating the internet, but here he is … denying an A.I. model scammed him out of a ton of money.

The chatter spread like wildfire over the past few days … which stated the 14-year vet fell victim to a super-hot catfish who wound up with $61K of his hard-earned money.

His buddy Gilbert Arenas didn’t do him any favors by breathing more life into it on his own podcast … so now here he is, setting the record straight.

Barnes specifically called out blogs, which he called “bottom of the barrel ass motherf***ers,” for spreading the lies, and revealed he reached out to Arenas about his take on the fake news without even checking in with him first.

“I told him, ‘After all we’ve been through, bro, like tap in with me to see if it’s real.’ He apologized,” Barnes said.

Barnes added in the 2:30-minute clip that he’s really trying to focus on repairing his family. Remember, the 45-year-old revealed in April that he and his fiancée, Ananasa Sims, broke off their engagement, and she publicly called him out for infidelity. He took 100% of the blame.

Erika Kirk got understandably emotional opening up about how much she feels the absence of her late husband, Charlie Kirk, around the house.

Speaking on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday while promoting Charlie’s new book, “Stop, in the Name of God,” Erika said while the world knew him as “Charlie Kirk,” to her he was the love of her life … and to their kids, he was just Daddy walking through the door.

Erika fought tears as she explained she always tried to make coming home special for Charlie — and she urged spouses watching not to sweat the small stuff or get mad at their partners, ’cause TBH … you never know what could happen.

As you know, Charlie was assassinated during a Turning Point USA tour stop at Utah Valley University on September 10 — shot in the neck while speaking about gun violence in America.

We’ve got new video of the Cinnabon employee’s foul-mouthed racist rant against a Black woman … claiming at one point she switched races by painting her face from white to Black.

The stunning clip shot by a witness last Friday at a Cinnabon inside a mall in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, opens with the worker screaming at the Black woman, who is with a Black man getting food at the kiosk.

The Cinnabon worker — a young white woman — claims the Black woman painted her face and pretended to be “5 different people” with a bandana tied around her “f***ing head!”

Sunday, we published the original video that was circulating online, which showed the altercation from a different angle — directly from the Black woman herself — with the Cinnabon worker proudly proclaiming she’s racist.