When North Carolina Tar Heels football coach Bill Belichick appeared on CBS Sunday Morning on Sunday, April 27, there were no limitations to what reporter Tony Dokoupil could ask him, according to a statement from the network.
“When we agreed to speak to Mr. Belichick, it was for a wide-ranging interview,” a CBS News spokesperson said in a statement posted to social media on Wednesday, April 30. “There were no preconditions or limitations to this conversation. This was confirmed repeatedly with his publisher before the interview took place and after it was completed.”
During the interview, Dokoupil asked how Belichick, 73, met his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson. Hudson, 24, was present as well and shut down the question.
“Not talking about this,” she interjected, with Dokoupil saying via voiceover that the “topic” of the couple’s age-gap relationship is something “neither one of them is comfortable commenting on.”
Belichick, for his part, released a statement earlier Wednesday, in which he said that he agreed to the interview under the condition that the discussion would focus solely on his upcoming book, due out on May 6.
“I agreed to speak with CBS Sunday Morning to promote my new book, “The Art of Winning — Lessons from My Life in Football,” he said. “Prior to this interview, I clearly communicated with my publicist at Simon & Schuster that any promotional interviews I participated in would agree to focus solely on the contents of the book.”
He continued, “Unfortunately, that expectation was not honored during the interview. I was surprised when unrelated topics were introduced, and I repeatedly expressed to the reporter, Tony Dokoupil, and the producers that I preferred to keep the conversation centered on the book. After this occurred several times, Jordon, with whom I share both a personal and professional relationship, stepped in to reiterate that point to help refocus the discussion. She was not deflecting any specific question or topic but simply doing her job to ensure the interview stayed on track. Some of the clips make it appear as though we were avoiding the question of how we met, but we have been open about the fact that Jordon and I met on a flight to Palm Beach in 2021.”
“The final eight-minute segment does not reflect the productive 35-minute conversation we had, which covered a wide range of topics related to my career,” he concluded. “Instead, it presents selectively edited clips and stills from just a few minutes of the interview to suggest a false narrative — that Jordon was attempting to control the conversation — which is simply not true.”
Belichick and Hudson first connected in 2023, though their relationship was not confirmed until June 2024 when Hudson shared photos of the two of them together on social media. Both have publicly addressed their 49-year age gap.
“Never been too worried about what anybody else thinks,” Belichick told Dokoupil of his relationship. “Just try to do what I feel like is best for me and what’s right.”
