NFLNFLBill Belichick’s book tour is off to quite the awkward start
CBS Sunday Morning/Getty Images/Ringer illustration
By Nora PrinciottiApril 30, 10:30 am UTC • 6 min
Fresh off her viral CBS Sunday Morning cameo, Jordon Hudson is still managing the story.
On Tuesday, the 24-year-old girlfriend (and evident media consigliere) of North Carolina head football coach Bill Belichick posted a screenshot of an email her beau sent earlier this month to several people in his inner circle. In the caption of the post, Hudson made a promise that a “full statement” would be released later in the day. The email seemed at least loosely related to the CBS interview debacle—because it was about Belichick’s gripes with the tone of the media coverage of his forthcoming book, The Art of Winning: Lessons From My Life in Football. That book had been the subject of his interview … until Hudson’s interjection during a question about the beginning of their relationship drew the focus elsewhere.
Hudson’s involvement in that CBS interview—which reportedly went far beyond shooting down the meet-cute question—and the promotion of Belichick’s book continues to round out the picture of her multipronged role in his life, but it especially draws attention to her role as his PR rep. She doesn’t have much of a background in the field, but we know that she’s been managing his interviews, monitoring social media posts about Belichick, and making sure UNC’s media team covers the coach’s sons with the “upmost” respect.
It might be time to wonder whether Hudson is the adept PR mind she’s positioning herself as, because, from a PR perspective, none of this book promo tour makes any sense.
Perhaps the statement Hudson has promised to release, or the video she seemingly teased in the second slide of her Instagram post with what looked like a still from a surreptitiously recorded conversation, will clear all this up, but the only reason I can think of for why Hudson would share Belichick’s email now is that it will help explain why they were so upset during that incredibly awkward interview.
In the email, which is dated April 10, Belichick’s main concern seems to be making sure that his book is framed by the media covering its release as a respectable how-to guide for those looking to succeed in any leadership field. He seems to kind of think it’s a business book? He name-checks billionaire hedge funder Ray Dalio and author Suzy Welch and cites the growth of the Patriots’ franchise value during his time as head coach as a career accomplishment before bringing up his six Super Bowl titles.
The email recipients are Hudson; “David”; “Jofie,” who could possibly be Simon & Schuster vice president Jofie Ferrari-Adler; “Michael”; the literary agent Richard Pine; and Berj Najarian, Belichick’s longtime right-hand man during his Patriots tenure who is currently the chief of staff for Boston College football.
Najarian’s inclusion on the thread caught my eye, given that his old role under Belichick was essentially the one Hudson, in her professional capacity at least, seems to be filling now: confidant, PR manager, and the person you have to go through to get access to Bill. In any event, it looks like some of these people are in his inner circle, but all of them are involved in the promotion of the book.
So is Hudson’s point in posting the email that she’s trying to dictate what sort of coverage Belichick and the book get in the future, and that the reason for her outburst at CBS was that interviewer Tony Dokoupil had strayed from questions about football and leadership?
It’s clear that neither Hudson nor Belichick, based on what he wrote in that email, seems to be able to identify softball coverage when it’s right in front of them. Though tabloid gossip suggests there were more issues and interruptions during the CBS interview that didn’t make it to air, the kerfuffle shown on the original broadcast came when Dokoupil asked Belichick how he met Hudson, causing her to interject, saying, “We’re not talking about this.” It’s a weird line to draw for someone who, on Tuesday, re-shared her own “Meetiversary” post from Instagram and has made their relationship increasingly public!
But in his email, Belichick seems most perturbed by media coverage focused on the portions of the book that cover mistakes from his career, though it’s not entirely clear what specific article or articles he’s upset about. Belichick’s email was sent the day after an early review of the book was published in The Boston Globe, though that review is pretty innocuous. Perhaps it is even kind, saying that Belichick “displays a surprising amount of humanity” but avoids delving into tell-all territory. The reviewer did note that the lack of salacious details was a disappointment, but the tone of the entire piece is certainly in line with the way Belichick seems to want the book to be perceived. (The Globe’s review also mentions how much the coach brings up Ray Dalio, an unexpected theme in all this!)
In Belichick’s email to his inner circle, he calls out an article that focuses on a portion of the book where he writes, “I f***ed up.” There is an extremely brief mention in the Globe piece of Belichick’s willingness to share “how important it is to say, ‘I [effed] that up,’” but it’s described as an intriguing takeaway from the book, and I can’t imagine a seasoned PR professional being upset by this review. And if they are, it should be because it makes the book seem kind of boring, unless you are the kind of reader who lives for a Ray Dalio reference.
If Hudson’s job is to facilitate coverage that supports the narrative Belichick wants around the book, the last few days have not gone well, since she’s become the story. Perhaps that was an accident—maybe she overreacted to an inconsequential moment in the CBS interview just because it nipped at an established pet peeve of Belichick’s about how the book was being received. That makes her a good girlfriend but a bad PR manager. Or could this just be a relationship founded in part on a shared sense of general grievance toward the press that does not require a rational basis? It’s not that much weirder to hire your 24-year-old girlfriend to do public relations than it is to ask Matt Patricia to coordinate your offense, and it’s entirely possible that both moves will ultimately have similar levels of success.
The alternative would be that Hudson is trying (though perhaps failing) to support Belichick’s desired narrative and that there are other motives for ginning up controversy and attention. People recently reported that Hudson, through her company Trouble Cub Enterprises, filed for 14 trademarks with the federal trademark office, all versions of slogans currently owned by the Patriots, like “Do Your Job” and “No Days Off,” but with “(Bill’s Version)” tacked on at the end. This is, of course, a cheeky nod to Taylor Swift and how the singer reclaimed ownership of the work she’d done while under contract for a previous employer, one who’d enjoyed the fruits of her labor for years before spurning her. You can see how that would be a compelling framework for Belichick. And it is with a heavy heart that I must share that Hudson seems to feel that she is operating within her own personal Reputation era—she attached Swift’s song “Look What You Made Me Do” to her post of Belichick’s email.
The song choice feeds the idea that this is all part of some big plan, that Hudson is playing a public game of 3D chess that’s now involving CBS weekend anchors. It’s pretty obvious she covets a public reaction. But to the extent that would mean Belichick has become a pawn in some scheme, I’ll say, as someone who covered him for several years in New England, his demeanor in that excruciatingly awkward interview was pretty par for the course. That’s simply how he acts in just about any interview setting he doesn’t really want to be in. It takes two to tango, or do an acroyoga photo shoot on the beach, or disrupt a morning TV institution over an easy question—and I don’t think we’ve heard the last of these two!
Nora Princiotti covers the NFL, culture, and pop music, sometimes all at once. She hosts the podcast ‘Every Single Album,’ appears on ‘The Ringer NFL Show,’ and is The Ringer’s resident Taylor Swift scholar.
