Bill Belichick is still defending the decision to allow his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, to participate in his interview with CBS in April. WRAL News reporter Brian Murphy explained Friday that Belichick said Hudson was at the interview because a publicist from his publisher was not.
Murphy added that a source also said “Hudson planned to be there all along.” But, he continued, “it does make you wonder [what would have happened] if the publicists had been there — maybe things would have gone differently.”
Belichick also sought advice from officials at UNC following the debacle. “I don’t want to make a wrong move here,” he wrote in one text.
“Jordon was present at the CBS interview because David Kass, the Simon & Schuster publicist, was not there,” Belichick also wrote in an email, referring to the publisher of his book. “I included Jordon in the book acknowledgments because she was a creative contributor to the book, including having the idea for formatting the 4 special pages in the book.”
“For approximately 35 uninterrupted minutes, Tony asked questions about the book,” Belichick emailed. “Then, the questions shifted to other subjects that were not related to the Art of Winning, which we had outlined as off-limits with my book publicist.”
In one email to Beth Keith, a senior associate vice chancellor in the Office of University Communications, he also accused CBS of recording Hudson without her knowledge. “Secretly, CBS had a camera focused on Jordon where Lead producer Gabe instructed her to sit,” WRAL reported a message read.
“I met Jordon randomly on a flight to Palm Beach in 2021,” he added. “That is no secret. Jordon was not dodging the specific question regarding how we met, but rather was preventing the interview from continuing to probe into personal matters.”
Hudson made waves after she interrupted Belichick’s interview — and the network aired the exchange. Belichick was asked how the two met, which prompted Hudson to interject, “We’re not talking about this.”
“It’s a topic neither one of them is comfortable commenting on,” host Tony Dokoupil then explained in a voiceover.
NBC Sports later reported the moment wasn’t the only time Hudson interrupted the interview. “While we don’t know the total number of interruptions, it’s our understanding that CBS decided to include that one specific instance because it wasn’t a one-time thing,” the outlet wrote.
Hudson’s interruption was jarring for several reasons, but most notably because the interview in question wasn’t hard-hitting journalism (Belichick is promoting his book “The Art of Winning: Lessons From My Life in Football”). “How did you two meet?” is also pretty standard fare when speaking to a couple, or when both parties are present.
CBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Watch the report on WRAL News.
