Barnabus Stinson is a fictional character portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris and created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas for the CBS television series How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014).

[3] The show's creators envisioned Barney as what Bays later described as a "large, John Belushi-type character";[4] nonetheless, Megan Branman, the casting director for How I Met Your Mother, invited Harris to audition.

His audition centered on a scene playing laser tag, and Harris attempted a dive roll, accidentally knocking over a chair and slamming into a wall in the process.

He is a manipulative, oversexed businessman in his thirties who always wears a suit, likes women with "daddy issues" and is frequently willing to offer his (sometimes hypocritical) opinion.

[5] Throughout the earlier seasons, Barney is a huge womanizer, and has been described as a "high-functioning sociopath" by his best friend, Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor).

In "Lucky Penny", when the others do not believe that he can run the New York City Marathon the next day without training, Barney immediately agrees to do so.

He has commitment issues, as evidenced in his reluctance to put a label on his relationship with Robin and the fact that she is one of the few women he has actually dated since the show started.

He frequently buys expensive items—such as a last-minute plane ticket to San Francisco, thousands of dollars in postage stamps, or two televisions specifically for smashing in frustration—in the spur of the moment.

By the time late Season 7 rolls around, Barney has finally "grown up," and has now warmed to the idea of a commitment and marriage, culminating in his proposal to his girlfriend, Quinn.

The series finale, "Last Forever", reveals that, three years after their wedding, they get divorced because Robin's hectic travel schedule prevents them from spending any time together.

Barney returns to a lifestyle of meaningless sex with multiple women for several years afterward, reasoning that if he could not form a lasting relationship with Robin it was not going to happen with anyone else, until he gets one of his one-night stands pregnant.

[9] At the end of "Daddy", the second season premiere of spinoff How I Met Your Father, which takes place in 2022, main character Sophie Tompkins (Hilary Duff) hits Barney's car (with a license plate reading "LGNDRY", a nod to his catchphrase, "Legendary").

He was raised in Port Richmond, Staten Island, by his mother Loretta (younger version voiced by Megan Mullally, played by Frances Conroy), who was apparently very promiscuous.

When Barney was young, he asked his mother who his father was, and as The Price Is Right happened to be on TV at the time, she pointed to Bob Barker and replied, "Oh, I don't know.

Years later, as portrayed in the season 2 episode "Showdown", he appears on The Price Is Right with the intention of naming Barker as his father on national television until he panics at the last minute and cannot go through with it.

As a child, Barney was terrible at sports, and from various episodes, it is shown he had few friends (one scene shows that no one attended his birthday party).

Barney has three half-siblings: James (played by Wayne Brady), from his mother's side, a gay African American who is married to a man, with whom he has an adopted son and daughter (as revealed in the season seven episode "The Rebound Girl"); Carly (played by Ashley Benson), a university student from his father's side, whom Ted dates in the episode "Ring Up!

As evidenced in Season 2 "Atlantic City", Barney learned at least conversational Korean, both Mandarin and Cantonese, Japanese, as well as some French.

"Game Night" reveals that Barney had once been an innocent, idealistic young man who wanted to join the Peace Corps with his first serious girlfriend, Shannon (Katie Walder).

When she left him for a suit-wearing womanizer, James arranged for the 23-year-old Barney to lose his virginity to their mother's friend, Rhonda "the Man Maker" French (Stephanie Faracy).

[15] In an allusion to Harris' role in Doogie Howser, M.D., the music played during his blogging sessions is the theme song from the show.

Barney is apparently quite wealthy, He lives in an upscale apartment he calls the Fortress of Barnitude, located at 100 on an unspecified street, and is rich enough to own two 300 inch televisions shipped from Japan as well as expensive memorabilia, including an Imperial Stormtrooper costume from the Star Wars films.

Despite this, he has suggested there is the possibility he will one day wash up on shore with no teeth or fingerprints and supposedly has come under attack by ninjas in the past during work.

In Season 4, during the episode "Happily Ever After", Barney states to a woman that he is an "Attorney in Law", though this was probably just part of a pick-up line as he immediately followed it with "Let's talk about getting you off".

Unknown to his company, he has been conspiring with the federal government as part of a long-term plan to get revenge on his boss, who stole his girlfriend prior to the start of the series.

For example, Barney gets him an internship at Altrucell in "Life Among the Gorillas", keeps him from sleeping with other women in "The Scorpion and the Toad", persuades Lily to come back to him in "Bachelor Party", and gets him a job at Goliath National Bank in "The Best Burger in New York".

Nevertheless, he considers Lily a confidante, seeking her advice on winning Robin over and telling her deeply personal secrets, such as his failed ambition to be a concert violinist.

In the eighth season, he launches an elaborate plan to win Robin's heart (encouraged by Ted's future wife) that ends with Barney proposing to her.

The series finale, "Last Forever", reveals that, after three years of marriage, they get divorced because Robin's work schedule prevents them from spending any time together.

[23] From 2007 to 2010, Harris was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his work playing Barney.