Matt Barnes Refuses To Admit That He’s Not Dating Rihanna

Either Rihanna's the target of some high-profile false claims, or we're all witnessing a real-life romantic comedy right now. Our money's on the former.

Memphis Grizzlies basketball player Matt Barnes continues to suggest that he and the pop singer are dating, albeit in the vaguest way possible. Seriously, politicians have nothing on Barnes' evasive, answer-free rhetoric skills, which he displayed in a recent visit to The Jim Rome Show.

Rome asked Barnes about his comments to TMZ Sports on August 15, when he claimed that he and Rihanna were two friends just seeing "how it goes" and saying "I think it just passed the crush stage just a little bit.” After hearing Barnes was telling tales out of school, RiRi cleared the air with some informative Instagram hashtags: "#bishwhere #thedevilisaliar #shesnotthatintoyou #shesnotintoyouatall #shesneverevenmetyou #thisactuallyhurtmyfeelings #defamationofcharacter."

So what does Barnes have to say in response to Rihanna's refutation? "You live and you learn," he told Jim Rome. "When you’re in a situation like this and, you know, you just learn. You just got to keep stuff to yourself obviously." Wait. Did he just call Rihanna a liar?

"I'm too grown to lie," he said to Jim Rome. "You know what I mean?" I guess? Maybe?

"It is what it is, I'm going to let this blow by like everything else blows by," he continued. When he saw Rihanna's Instagram, "I just smiled. I just smiled, that's it. What can you do? At the end of the day, we're all grown-ups. Like I said, I'm too grown to be lying about stuff, but life is life. You live and you learn."

So Barnes maintains he's the one telling the truth, yet he basically did so in a way that wouldn't hold up in a #defamationofcharacter suit. Rihanna may be romantically linked to Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, but it seems like the classy Matt Barnes really knows a way to a lady's heart.