Bill Belichick’s sit-down interview with CBS Sunday Morning set off a firestorm of reactions and hot takes — and new details have emerged about how it went so far off the rails.
During Belichick’s conversation with reporter Tony Dokoupil, which aired on April 27, Belichick’s girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, interjected from off camera when Belichick was asked to explain how the couple met. “We’re not talking about this,” Hudson, 23, said.
The awkward moment went viral, with Belichick, 73, and Hudson’s relationship becoming fodder for Saturday Night Live, Belichick’s former players and more.
According to journalist Pablo Torre, who did a podcast deep dive into Belichick and Hudson last week, the whole thing was steeped in unforeseen irony.
“It’s just very funny when CBS Sunday Morning is the PR nightmare,” Torre, 39, said Monday, May 12, on the “Ovies & Giglio” podcast. “They were trying to do a puff piece. And then all of this happened.”
CBS Sunday Morning traveled to Belichick’s hometown of Annapolis for the interview, which was supposed to be civilized and breezy — until it wasn’t.
“They went to his high school in Annapolis, Mayland hoping to do the walk-and-talk,” Torre said. “I confirmed so many details about what that actual set was like that day. They were trying to get to the walk-and-talk. They were trying to set up Bill to answer the obvious question about his girlfriend.”
When the question came, however, Hudson intervened.
In the aftermath, Belichick defended Hudson’s behavior during the interview, saying she “stepped in” in order to “help refocus the discussion.”
However, Torre claimed Belichick “lied about how the CBS whole thing was set up.”
In a statement released on April 30, Belichick said, “I clearly communicated with my publicist at Simon & Schuster that any promotional interviews I participated in would agree to focus solely on the contents of the book.”
“That is a lie,” Torre alleged. “There was no agreement. They actually talked about this with the publicist and CBS that they would ask about this.”
Torre added that “Jordon not on the [same] program about that, it seems.”
In response to Belichick, CBS issued a statement on April 30 saying their interview was presented without any restrictions.
“When we agreed to speak with Mr. Belichick, it was for a wide-ranging interview,” a spokesperson for CBS News said. “There were no preconditions or limitations to this conversation. This was confirmed repeatedly with his publisher before the interview took place and after it was completed.”
