At this point, it’s already become clear that Bill Belichick’s girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, has had some sort of involvement in her boyfriend’s job as North Carolina’s head coach.
Now we’re continuing to learn how.
According to a new report from The Athletic, the 24-year-old Hudson played a key role in stopping the previously planned production of an HBO Hard Knocks series focused on the Tar Heels. The report details how filming for the project was set to begin on March 1 (one day after it was first reported to be happening) but never received Belichick’s final approval, only for NFL Films and HBO to pull the plug two days later.
“The conversation took a turn we were not comfortable with,” NFL vice president for commercial operations and business affairs Jessica Boddy, who was also one of the show’s executive producers, wrote in an email to the school obtained by The Athletic.
While it’s unclear how Hudson helped prevent the project from happening, The Athletic’s reporting states that her role in stopping the production was “instrumental,” according to multiple industry sources briefed on the negotiations. The report also details how Belichick was seemingly on-board with the project initially, with the halted production costing North Carolina $200,000 in facilities fees and even more byway of exposure.
Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show in March, North Carolina general manager Michael Lombardi portrayed the decision to end the project as one that was made by the Tar Heels program.
“It would’ve been great,” Lombardi said. “The problem was that we control the story we need to tell here. And the story that we want to tell doesn’t end after we play TCU. The story that we want to tell is about how we’re rebuilding this program, how we’re going to honor the great players that have come before us. How we’re going to re-store Tar Heel football, and make this stadium come alive on Saturday afternoons, like a lot of the other schools in the ACC. That’s the story we want to tell.
“And when it stops after the first game like Hard Knocks does, it doesn’t really do as any good to tell that story. And that really was the concern that we all had here in the building. We’re storytellers. When you let them in the building, we’re going to tell a story. And the story we want to tell about how we’re working to build this program, and we’re going to work hard to recruit and do all that — and that extends into September, October, November; it can’t stop at Labor Day. I think that was more the issue.”
News of Hudson’s alleged involvement in ending the Hard Knocks project comes amid a week in which she has made headlines for interrupting a Belichick interview on CBS Sunday Morning, shutting down a question about how she and her 73-year-old boyfriend first met. TMZ later reported that the former Bridgewater State cheerleader interfered in the interview multiple times and became so heated at one point that she stormed off the set, delaying production by approximately 30 minutes.
Previous reporting has revealed that Belichick has asked at least one UNC staffer to copy Hudson on emails, with The Athletic later reporting that she has identified herself as the chief operating officer officer of “Belichick Productions.” No business records, however, seemingly exist for such company, only raising further questions about the nature of Belichick’s professional relationship with Hudson, who isn’t officially employed by the University of North Carolina.
