Speaker 1: Bill Belichick is back in the news again today thanks
Speaker 1: to his girlfriend Jordan Hudson or is she his fiancee?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: After The New York Times reported earlier this week that
Speaker 1: the Miss Main pageant contestant shared with someone that she
Speaker 1: was engaged to Belichick, TMZ published photos yesterday showing that
Speaker 1: Belichick's boat, famously called eight Rings in honor of the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl wins with the Patriots and the Giants, has
Speaker 1: a new paint job that now reads one plus.
Speaker 2: Eight rings end quote.
Speaker 1: This is fueled the already ramped in speculation about their
Speaker 1: relationship status moving toward marriage, as reports continue to come
Speaker 1: in that those in Belichick's in a circle have serious concerns.
Speaker 1: Joining me now to discuss this is the man who
Speaker 1: has been leading the charge on reporting on this romance.
Speaker 1: He was a longtime colleague of mine at ESPN and
Speaker 1: is now the host of the Peabody Award nominated Pablo
Speaker 1: Torre Finds Out podcast. Pablo Tory is in the house.
Speaker 1: What's going on, Pablo? Long time, no speak man.
Speaker 3: How you doing, Renee. It's good to see you. Beyond
Speaker 3: just from afar. When you're court sided at a game,
Speaker 3: it's been too long, and this is a strange circumstance
Speaker 3: under which we meet again.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely concerned. Strange, but it's really really good to
Speaker 1: talk to you. It's been a while, man, Good.
Speaker 2: To talk to you. Good to see you doing so well.
Speaker 2: Let's get right to it.
Speaker 1: What have you heard about whether or now Belichick and
Speaker 1: Jordan Hudson are engaged?
Speaker 2: What can you tell the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've been deeping this rabbit hole for months now,
Speaker 3: and what I can tell you is that as recently
Speaker 3: as March, Bill Belichick was asked directly by a close friend,
Speaker 3: are you engaged to Jordan Hudson, who at that point,
Speaker 3: by the way, was twenty three Now she's twenty four,
Speaker 3: And Bill Belichick told that friend directly, no, I am not. Simultaneously, though,
Speaker 3: Steven A, as we examine what the most highly paid
Speaker 3: public employee in the state of North Carolina is up
Speaker 3: to his personal and professional lives being merged and blended,
Speaker 3: what we're also hearing, what I am also hearing, at least,
Speaker 3: is that Jordan Hudson has in fact been telling multiple
Speaker 3: people that they are engaged.
Speaker 4: And so this is one of those classic messes that.
Speaker 3: Are familiar to anybody who's been following this saga. And
Speaker 3: I've been reporting on this, talking to eleven different people
Speaker 3: who have directly dealt with both of them in this
Speaker 3: new phase of Bill Belichick's life, all of whom observe
Speaker 3: that the man is acting in a way that, as
Speaker 3: you well know, is so deeply opposite to the man
Speaker 3: that we thought we understood for about twenty years.
Speaker 1: Why is this story so compelling, particularly to somebody like yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean, he is so I think it is seventy three,
Speaker 1: she's twenty four. That's a forty nine year different. A
Speaker 1: lot of people are uncomfortable with that stuff. A lot
Speaker 1: more people don't care. Why does Pablo Tory care talk
Speaker 1: to us about that?
Speaker 4: It's a great question.
Speaker 3: My mom asks me this question as she's wondering why
Speaker 3: I go from being nominated for a Peabody, winning an
Speaker 3: Edward R. Murrow or to caring about this And to me,
Speaker 3: this is a story about power seven A.
Speaker 4: It's a story about public figures.
Speaker 3: It's a story about what it means when a guy
Speaker 3: gets a job at North Carolina to lead young men
Speaker 3: and is hired under the pretenses of him being a
Speaker 3: lot like the guy that everybody at Carolina remembered from
Speaker 3: when he was the coach of the New England Patriots,
Speaker 3: the GM of the Patriots, a guy known for a
Speaker 3: couple of things, right, a lack of distraction, discipline, privacy,
Speaker 3: and truly an undefeated record against the media. And so
Speaker 3: this story is not merely like an age gap relationship story.
Speaker 3: And frankly, I don't care about the age gap so much,
Speaker 3: even though I think it is certainly interesting. I'm not
Speaker 3: here to yuck Bill Belichick's youms right.
Speaker 4: He's not the.
Speaker 3: First older man to be intrigued by a younger woman.
Speaker 3: That's not what's new here. What's new is the fact
Speaker 3: that we knew this guy in a very distinct way,
Speaker 3: such that he was one of the most defined characters
Speaker 3: we've ever seen before, with all of those ways that
Speaker 3: he defined himself, very deliberately and proudly. And now the
Speaker 3: question is why is he acting so differently? Who was
Speaker 3: advising him? And what does it mean that he has
Speaker 3: handed power to a twenty four year old that he
Speaker 3: met on a plane when she was nineteen.
Speaker 1: I want you to explain how he's acting so differently.
Speaker 1: I don't see much of a difference. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: him at Boston Celtics games with a former girlfriend after
Speaker 1: he had gotten divorced. I remember seeing him as an
Speaker 1: individual that really didn't want to talk to the media
Speaker 1: at all, and when he did it was certainly begrudgingly.
Speaker 1: In this particular instance, he was coming out with a book.
Speaker 1: I saw this interview where she was pretty assertive in
Speaker 1: that interview or whatever, and to me, that fell right
Speaker 1: in line with him only from the standpoint of he's
Speaker 1: only talking to you because he's promoting the book. And oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, having her be so invasive and so
Speaker 1: demanding during that interview that prevented him from having to
Speaker 1: be the bad guy for once.
Speaker 2: I really didn't see much of a difference.
Speaker 1: So when you say there's a difference in his behavior,
Speaker 1: articulate to our audience what you're seeing in terms of
Speaker 1: his behavior that so diametrically opposed anything that we've seen
Speaker 1: from him before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say, yeah, that CBS the Sunday Morning interview.
Speaker 3: That was just the glimpse, the first glimpse that the
Speaker 3: public had into the ways in which, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: there's a new person who seems to be having influence
Speaker 3: over Bill Balichick. The reason he's acting so differently, as
Speaker 3: I have observed, it is because when he left the Patriots,
Speaker 3: when the NFL basically said you are no longer wanted
Speaker 3: here as a coach, certainly as a GM, he had
Speaker 3: to pivot to being a public figure, which means that
Speaker 3: a guy who has protected Steven and you know how
Speaker 3: this works, a guy who was protected by an inner
Speaker 3: circle in a football building, a professional football building, had
Speaker 3: to figure out what do I do now? And so
Speaker 3: when he is not insulated by the structures, truly the
Speaker 3: structures and scheduling of the NFL, he, as we.
Speaker 4: All saw, pivoted to media.
Speaker 3: He launched about half dozen different media projects in which
Speaker 3: it was now you're coming to Bill Balichick because he
Speaker 3: now for the first time, wants to talk to the public,
Speaker 3: and he wants to be accepted and followed and subscribed
Speaker 3: to and appreciated as somebody who has many interesting things
Speaker 3: to say. And certainly when he was a coach, we
Speaker 3: saw him give, you know, fifteen hundred word paragraph blog
Speaker 3: answers about long snappers. But this now is Bill Belichick
Speaker 3: saying I'm here to be in public.
Speaker 4: And the person behind the scenes who was steering.
Speaker 3: Him what I'm reporting is that the person behind the
Speaker 3: scenes who was in charge, the boss of his media ventures,
Speaker 3: the COO of Belichick Productions, is Jordan Hudson. And so
Speaker 3: when it comes to how is he behaving, it is
Speaker 3: the part about what his business was, and now it's
Speaker 3: the part not merely going to Carolina and being a
Speaker 3: college coach, in which he has to appeal to young men,
Speaker 3: young people and be online in this era of name,
Speaker 3: image and likeness, right, he has to be somehow fluent
Speaker 3: in the Internet for the first time, which is what
Speaker 3: he has turned to Jordan Hudson initially for.
Speaker 4: When I talked to former players or Bill Belichick.
Speaker 3: At the Patriots, what they say is that the most
Speaker 3: shocking part is that this man, his private life was
Speaker 3: supposed to be private. You saw him court side, you
Speaker 3: saw him on Nantucket. You saw his former longtime girlfriend
Speaker 3: of fifteen years, Linda Holiday, bring him out to parties,
Speaker 3: bring him around to those things. But this kind of
Speaker 3: thing where he's being held up rather, I mean he
Speaker 3: is holding her up by his feet doing yoga on
Speaker 3: the beach.
Speaker 4: She's dressing as a mermaid, all of this stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, this is where his former players are like whoa, whoa, wha, whoa,
Speaker 3: willingly posting that that's not the bill that we knew.
Speaker 1: Well, what about the argument that the bill that we
Speaker 1: knew had to alter his way of life and his
Speaker 1: way of thinking to some degree because the NFL didn't
Speaker 1: want a six time champion as a head coach and
Speaker 1: eight time champion overall. When you take into account the
Speaker 1: two defensive coordinator positions that I'm sorry, the two titles
Speaker 1: that he won as a defensive coordinator with the New
Speaker 1: York Giants, but the Atlanta Falcons job in particular, along
Speaker 1: with various other jobs that were available and mentioned, he
Speaker 1: couldn't get those jobs because.
Speaker 2: He was considered the past.
Speaker 1: You had young thoroughbreds, You had young bloods that were
Speaker 1: now running organizations that didn't want a football genius like
Speaker 1: himself as somebody that they would have to communicate with
Speaker 1: an ultimately antwit to in some kind of way because
Speaker 1: he would be the head coach of a franchise. What
Speaker 1: about the notion that that forced and compelled him to
Speaker 1: make this shift, because obviously he took a college job.
Speaker 2: When we all know he would have preferred to be
Speaker 2: in the NFL.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, the biggest signal was in the contract he
Speaker 3: signed at UNC because June first, which.
Speaker 4: Is right upon us, is a big date.
Speaker 3: Even a before Jordan Hudson became this public figure in
Speaker 3: the CBS interview and elsewhere, we knew that there was
Speaker 3: a clause in that contract that said the buyout that
Speaker 3: Bill Belichick could exercise on June first dropped from ten
Speaker 3: million dollars to one million dollars, right, ten times less.
Speaker 4: That was his option if he wanted.
Speaker 3: In fact, if he got, in fact, the offer that
Speaker 3: never came from the NFL and is not forthcoming any
Speaker 3: regard at this point. So it's always been about him
Speaker 3: wanting the NFL and having to settle for a different
Speaker 3: version of his life. And look, I don't have a
Speaker 3: lack of sympathy for anybody who does one thing at
Speaker 3: a genius level forever and then is said, with no
Speaker 3: uncertain terms, He is told, with no uncertain terms, you're
Speaker 3: not wanted here anymore.
Speaker 4: You're over the hill.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: That is a human experience as well. I am not
Speaker 3: saying that that is not at play here, but the
Speaker 3: question of what you do next is where we're discovering
Speaker 3: Bill Belichick. Really for the first time, Bill Belichick not
Speaker 3: in the NFL context. I remember what Bob Kraft, of course,
Speaker 3: the owner of the Patriots, once said to our colleague
Speaker 3: Seth Wickersham. He said Bill Belichick was an idiot savant,
Speaker 3: which is to say he is an absolute, unimpeachable genius
Speaker 3: when it comes to the football, but everything.
Speaker 4: Else, right, he's not.
Speaker 3: And we're just discovering the ways in which that might
Speaker 3: be true, which we have had visibility into for twenty years.
Speaker 1: Just about a couple more questions before I let you
Speaker 1: get on out of here, Pablo, And I really appreciate
Speaker 1: because I know you got to run soon.
Speaker 2: Do we even care about this?
Speaker 1: If Jordan Hudson is not twenty four years of age,
Speaker 1: if she's considered.
Speaker 3: I would right now listen the tabloid storm, the hurricane.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right, this is catnip for everybody who wants
Speaker 3: to say. This is a story that you probably can
Speaker 3: deduce already without even clicking on the story.
Speaker 4: Right, it is an age gap relationship, This is a
Speaker 4: gold digger. This is worse.
Speaker 3: This is somebody who is I've seen her accused of
Speaker 3: being an only fans model and worked a call girl. Right,
Speaker 3: My reporting does not indicate that that is the case
Speaker 3: at all. This is the story to me of an
Speaker 3: ambitious young woman who in some ways reminds me of
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley. And I'll explain why I say that, because
Speaker 3: I went to school, I went to college with these
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley people, and they are ambitious and they are young,
Speaker 3: and they don't know what they don't know.
Speaker 4: But they go into industries and they blow them up.
Speaker 3: They blow them up, and they leave a trail of
Speaker 3: wreckage behind them because they don't understand a really key thing,
Speaker 3: which is unintended consequences. So it's not that Jordan Hudson
Speaker 3: isn't in some way clever or ambitious, or driven or
Speaker 3: determined or.
Speaker 4: A real aspiring PR person.
Speaker 3: But see even that, you've worked in comms around comm's
Speaker 3: people PR people for as long as anybody at this point,
Speaker 3: and you know that when you are the story, you
Speaker 3: have failed in your job. And so the question becomes,
Speaker 3: is Bill Belichick keeping her around in this way because
Speaker 3: she is good at her job?
Speaker 4: Or is it because, as his own family fears.
Speaker 3: According to sources around the Belichicks, he doesn't totally realize
Speaker 3: the damage being done to his legacy to Carolina, to
Speaker 3: that program, to this understanding of him.
Speaker 2: Wait that we were so close to about that. Listen,
Speaker 2: first of all, let me say this in the interest
Speaker 2: of full disclosure.
Speaker 1: I remember when I covered the Philadelphia seventy six ers
Speaker 1: and Larry Brown was the head coach and at the
Speaker 1: time he was fit the six years of age and
Speaker 1: his wife was twenty six. I mean, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: the only person that I saw with someone considerably younger
Speaker 1: than them. I don't understand how that could potentially equate
Speaker 1: to tarnishing the legacy of a Bill Belichick when his legacy.
Speaker 2: Is completely tied to football excellence. That's it.
Speaker 1: Outside of his football excellence, nobody has pretty much given
Speaker 1: the damn about Bill Belichick and his life or his
Speaker 1: quality of life or how he lives his life.
Speaker 2: All they've ever cared about was what he did on
Speaker 2: the football field as a coach.
Speaker 1: So, now that he's on a collegiate level instead of
Speaker 1: a pro level, if he goes to Carolina and win,
Speaker 1: or whether he wins or loses, that might be a
Speaker 1: determining factor as it pertains to how his legacy is
Speaker 1: looked upon. But I don't think his personal affairs with
Speaker 1: who he chooses to have as a girlfriend or a wife.
Speaker 1: There we say is going to impact his legacy. Is
Speaker 1: that what you're implaying.
Speaker 3: No, I'm saying that the football star on the field,
Speaker 3: his coaching record unimpeachable. The decision making around it has
Speaker 3: been what's been called into question by everybody. And so
Speaker 3: when it comes to look, when I'm God forbid we
Speaker 3: write the oh bit for Bill Belichick one day, the
Speaker 3: first paragraph absolutely needs to be around the football.
Speaker 4: The question is the Carolina experiment right now?
Speaker 3: And what I'm told from Carolina is that his own
Speaker 3: inner circle, the higher ups, the administrators at the university
Speaker 3: are all saying that Jordan Hudson cannot be involved with
Speaker 3: our program.
Speaker 4: She is not welcome in the building. They don't want
Speaker 4: her around because.
Speaker 3: As there have been records now public records requests that
Speaker 3: have shown that she is asked to be c seed
Speaker 3: on every single email. She has been spotted in videos
Speaker 3: on the field. She is his representative, his first lady
Speaker 3: in lots of ways. It's not merely that this is
Speaker 3: a younger woman.
Speaker 4: Is that this is a woman who.
Speaker 3: Seeks power and has received it. Okay, and now the
Speaker 3: question is, how do you deal with that part.
Speaker 1: Last question two parts number one, has she been officially
Speaker 1: banned by the university or is it just that they
Speaker 1: don't want her around and they've made that clear, but
Speaker 1: they're not demanding that she be banned and that she
Speaker 1: not be around.
Speaker 2: That's number one to number two.
Speaker 1: Do you think that Bill Belichick ever coaches a game
Speaker 1: at North Carolina? Do you think that's a job he
Speaker 1: walks away from before this season even begins because of
Speaker 1: all of this stuff involving her.
Speaker 4: Last on what I'm reporting, Yeah, No, two great questions.
Speaker 3: What I'm reporting is that number one, there has been,
Speaker 3: in no uncertain terms, the message from the top of
Speaker 3: the university to the football program that she cannot be
Speaker 3: associated with the program anymore.
Speaker 4: She shouldn't be in the building, she shouldn't be on
Speaker 4: the field.
Speaker 3: Now they have pushed back on that by saying, in
Speaker 3: a bit of an interesting PR statement Sandwich, that Jordan
Speaker 3: Hudson is not employed by the university. They confirm that
Speaker 3: for the first time in refound of my reporting, and
Speaker 3: that she is only involved with Bill Belichick in the
Speaker 3: personal capacity as his PR representative, but that she is
Speaker 3: welcome in the building. Right, So I cannot speak to
Speaker 3: how North Carolina may be adjust what their messaging was
Speaker 3: since my report came out, they did not answer my
Speaker 3: request for comment, nor do they fulfill my Public Record's
Speaker 3: request on that front. But the second question about whether
Speaker 3: he makes it a game, my suspicion right now is
Speaker 3: that the way he is handling his press tour indicates
Speaker 3: in which he says to Michael Strahan, he says to
Speaker 3: Christine Williamson at the ACC meetings. He says it to
Speaker 3: Ryan Clark, our colleague, right, he says, she is off
Speaker 3: to the side. This is only personal, This is not football.
Speaker 3: If he's going to agree to that in real terms,
Speaker 3: and everybody at Caroline is going to get to, frankly
Speaker 3: calm down because they can do their jobs in the
Speaker 3: way that they were hoping to as a normal program might,
Speaker 3: then I think he makes it. Of course, to week one.
Speaker 3: Do I think he lasts for more than a year?
Speaker 3: Stephen A for a team that you know didn't win
Speaker 3: seven games last year. I would set the line absolutely
Speaker 3: at one season, a one and done scenario.
Speaker 1: So what I especially since he's got the one million buyout,
Speaker 1: because I think an NFL team could potentially come callon,
Speaker 1: especially if he's successful North Carolina and that one million
Speaker 1: dollar BI it as supposed to be in ten million dollars.
Speaker 1: I think it's something that is doable, and I think
Speaker 1: that here return to the NFL, Pablo Torre, appreciate your man.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking time out of you
Speaker 1: business schedule. I know you got to run, so get
Speaker 1: on out of hend.
Speaker 4: Thank you again, anytime, Stevin, anytime.
Speaker 1: All right went on with Pablo Torre. He's doing a
Speaker 1: good job obviously covering this story. I mean for me personally,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, I mean to each his own. When
Speaker 1: I thought about his personal life, I'm like, damn if
Speaker 1: it's consensual. She's an adult, he's an adult. Ain't my
Speaker 1: cup of tea going with somebody that damn young. But
Speaker 1: that's his thing.
Speaker 2: That's his thing.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I've covered numerous executives, coaches, etc. That
Speaker 1: messed around with people considerably younger than them. I don't
Speaker 1: think that you know this is something that could potentially
Speaker 1: affect his legacy. What I will say, however, is this,
Speaker 1: it is interesting that she's his pr representative because that
Speaker 1: is him empowering her to some degree when she kept interfering,
Speaker 1: you know, with the questioning to Bill Belichick during that interview.
Speaker 2: It's one thing I know that she's his girlfriend.
Speaker 1: It's one thing for people to look at her and say, hey,
Speaker 1: as his girlfriend. You know, look at how invasive she was.
Speaker 1: It's another thing entirely when you're as PR rep. Because
Speaker 1: I've seen many PR reps conduct themselves that way during interviews.
Speaker 1: I've seen PR reps stop interviews from people when they
Speaker 1: didn't like the line of questioning. So that does change
Speaker 1: things a little bit. I didn't realize she was his
Speaker 1: PR representative. No matter which way you slice it, the
Speaker 1: man is older, he's divorced, he's got three kids.
Speaker 2: He had a girlfriend for a while and then they
Speaker 2: broke up with her, and now he's doing this.
Speaker 1: In the end, it is entirely possible that Bill Belichick
Speaker 1: may have the last laugh, because he's happier than the
Speaker 1: pig and mud than most of us. Some would say
Speaker 1: that if indeed it ends up going to that point,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And to be quite hondered with you,
Speaker 1: I don't give a damn. All I care about is
Speaker 1: what he's doing in the breaking any laws, all right,
Speaker 1: And he's not committing any crimes and they're in a
Speaker 1: consensual relation, that's their damn business. What I care about
Speaker 1: is how he's gonna look coachingto Carolina Tar Hills as
Speaker 1: head coach on a collegiate level, and whether or not
Speaker 1: he's going to ever get back into the NFL as
Speaker 1: a head coach because he's not somebody that deserved to
Speaker 1: be without a head coaching job. Think about the teams
Speaker 1: that would be better off in the National Football League
Speaker 1: if Bill Belichick was coaching them as opposed to some
Speaker 1: of the other coaches that they have to answer to.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, I'm just saying