Since its inception last fall, The Sports Gossip Show has frequently discussed Bill Belichick’s relationship with Jordon Hudson.
So it certainly came as a surprise when the 24-year-old ex-Bridgewater State cheerleader cold-called one of the show’s hosts, Charlotte Wilder, a few weeks ago, jumpstarting a bizarre extended dialogue between the two sides
Wilder and co-host Madeline Hill detailed the story on the latest episode of their show, which marked its second installment as a part of The Athletic’s podcast network. According to Wilder, the entire ordeal began at 9:07 p.m. on a Saturday when Hudson called her out of the blue, announcing herself as “the president of your universe” — a callback to a comment the show made about her during an episode focused on her appearance at the Miss Maine pageant.
The two engaged in an extended conversation, which Wilder said focused mainly on that very episode. She also mentioned that Hudson had a tendency to talk in circles and use “word salad,” making it unclear what she was trying to achieve during the call.
“She would oscillate between like friendly, but there was clearly like an edge to her voice where she kind of wanted to let me have it,” Wilder recalled.
The two agreed to loop in Hill, which ultimately led to the podcast hosts engaging in multiple FaceTime calls and group chat conversations with college football’s most famous girlfriend. The tenor of the conversations seemed to largely follow the same pattern as the initial call with Wilder, although the podcast hosts believed they were making progress toward getting Hudson to appear on their show.
Those recruitment efforts hit a snag when Hudson learned that the podcast was joining The Athletic, whose coverage of her relationship with Belichick she had believed to be overly critical. Nevertheless, they reached a point where Hudson told them that she was considering traveling to New York for what would have marked one of the biggest interview gets in all of media, sports, or otherwise.
But on the day the hosts believed the interview might have been happening, Wilder received another call. And this time, it was clear that Hudson was upset with the show and that the interview wouldn’t be happening.
“She’s yelling at me. She’s crying. She said that she finished the rest of the Miss Maine episode and she didn’t like what we said,” Wilder recalled. “And I was like ‘wait what?’ I was like, ‘I thought we’ve been talking about the Miss Maine episode that we did that you watched the whole time?’… we had a feeling that there was this tension in the calls. It felt like we were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Wilder added that the emotional nature of the call was especially strange since she and Hill had already informed Hudson that they would be discussing their interactions with her on the podcast, regardless of whether an interview took place.
“I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ You know, you want to like save her from herself,” she said. “You’re like, person to person, don’t do this. In our roles, this is what we have to say you did now.”
Both Wilder and Hill likened their extended conversations with Hudson to a toxic relationship, in which they were each trying to balance their roles as journalists while speaking with a subject whose motives were unclear. While an interview never came to fruition, the entire podcast episode makes for a fascinating listen and certainly paints the portrait of someone who is still struggling to find her footing as a public figure in more ways than one.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.