The North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Stanford Cardinal, 20-15, on Saturday, November 8, but the real showdown might have come off the field between Jordon Hudson and her boyfriend Bill Belichick’s daughter-in-law.
Hudson, 24, and Jennifer Schmitt, who is married to Belichick’s son Stephen, both attended the game but awkwardly seemed to keep their distance from each other during and after the game, in pictures obtained by TMZ.
They each wore white tops with blue skirts, but watched the game from separate suites, arms crossed and eyes fixed on the field. (Belichick, 73, is in his first season as UNC head coach and Stephen, 38, is the team’s defensive coordinator.)
Though they were dressed similarly, Hudson set herself apart by sporting a necklace with the word “Banned” on it, an apparent nod to the rumor during the offseason that she had been banned from North Carolina’s football facilities.
Even with no verbal confrontation between Hudson and Schmitt, their frosty, non-encounter is notable, coming six months after Schmitt seemed to take a swipe at Hudson via social media.
It came amid the fallout from Belichick’s infamous CBS Sunday Morning interview in April, in which Hudson stepped in to shut down a question from journalist Tony Dokoupil about how the couple met. Schmitt replied to comedian Nikki Glaser, who wrote via Instagram that Hudson was “acting as his publicist.”
“Publicists act in a professional manner and don’t ‘storm’ off-set delaying an interview,” Schmitt wrote in the comments.
One of Hudson’s family members told Us Weekly exclusively in September that Belichick was “not happy” with Schmitt’s comments, and viewed them as “fanning the flames” of the controversy.
Hudson, for her part, took to Instagram to defend herself after the incident, writing, “I will not be cyber-bullied into submission. I will continue to stand for love, authenticity and permissibility of nonconformity. They can burn me at the stake, but they cannot burn out my light!”
In the aftermath of the CBS Sunday Morning interview, Belichick tried to clear the air by releasing a statement, saying he was under the impression that the interview would focus solely on his book, The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football.
“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 wrote at the time.
“Unfortunately, that expectation was not honored during the interview,” he continued. “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.”
A CBS spokesperson pushed back against Belichick’s account, saying in a statement, “When we agreed to speak to Mr. Belichick, it was for a wide-ranging interview. 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.”
