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Julian Edelman defends Bill Belichick’s girlfriend after viral CBS interview
"I think she’s actually working with Coach Belichick in the professional world and she probably went and said, ‘Hey, no, we’re not doing that.’”
Bill Belichick and his girlfriend, 24-year-old Jordon Hudson, have found themselves at the center of much online discourse over the last few days.
Their viral status stems from an awkward interview on “CBS Sunday Morning”, where the now-head coach of the University of North Carolina football team raised plenty of eyebrows when asked about his relationship with Hudson and his abrupt exit from the Patriots.
While few would be surprised by Belichick’s dismissive retorts to questions about Robert Kraft and the Patriots, a question from CBS reporter Tony Dokoupil about Hudson quickly began making the rounds online.
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“How did you guys meet,” CBS interviewer Tony Dokoupil asked Belichick.
“We’re not talking about this,” Hudson interjected, with cameras catching her watching the taping to the side.
Dokoupil followed up, “No?” To which Hudson replied, “No.”
That uncomfortable interaction has sparked off plenty of discourse around Belichick, 73, his stability at Chapel Hill, and Hudson’s influence over the future Hall-of-Fame head coach.
According to TMZ, Hudson interjected on numerous occasions during CBS’s interview,, with the tabloid adding that Hudson walked out of the taping at one point, delaying the filming for “about half an hour.”
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“We’re told outside of that baffling moment that made the final edit, there were numerous other instances of Hudson butting in — even when the legendary coach was answering questions about football, she would stop and correct him,” TMZ wrote.
On Wednesday, Belichick and CBS offered conflicting statements about the nature of the interview, with Belichick’s comments — released through the University of North Carolina — stating that what aired was a “selectively edited’ final cut that pushed a “false narrative” about Hudson trying to control the interview.
CBS defended its editorial standards just hours after Belichick’s comments were posted, noting that there “were no preconditions or limitations” to what was agreed to be a “wide-ranging interview” about Belichick and his book: “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football”.
While Hudson has been a conduit of criticism following Sunday’s interview, one of Belichick’s former players in New England, Julian Edelman, defended Hudson this week.
Speaking on his “Dudes on Dudes” podcast, Edelman compared Hudson’s role in Belichick’s day-to-day business to Berj Najarian, who spent 24 years working alongside Belichick as the director of football/head coach administration with the Patriots.
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Najarian is now serving as Bill O’Brien’s chief of staff with the Boston College football team.
“People are giving an unfair reality of what’s going on,” Edelman said. “Because she was jumping into that conversation during the interview just like any PR person would jump in when there’s an unnecessary question that probably didn’t go over in the pre-production meeting.
“From what I’ve heard, Jordon is playing the Berj role. Handling all the football ops, handing a lot of his social, a lot of his PR. When you look at this situation and you say, ‘Oh this is his girlfriend jumping in.’ I think that’s unfair. I think she’s actually working with Coach Belichick in the professional world and she probably went and said, ‘Hey, no, we’re not doing that.’”
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