Jordon Hudson is not letting the haters get her down.
The former Miss Maine USA pageant contestant shared a new photo via Instagram showing her blowing a kiss while standing on the sidelines with her boyfriend, Bill Belichick. Hudson’s signature defiance was on full display in the photo.
Hudson, 24, has become an expert in using tongue-in-cheek photos and one-liners to respond to controversy over her romance with the North Carolina Tar Heels head coach. (Belichick, 73, started dating Hudson shortly after his split from longtime partner, Linda Holliday, in 2023. He was previously married to Debby Clarke Belichick from 1977 to 2006 and they share three children: Amanda, 41, Steve, 38, and Brian, 37.)
The beauty queen recently referenced Taylor Swift’s track “So Long London” — which is widely believed to be about Swift’s ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn — to poke fun at breakup rumors.
“If Bill and I were to break up, would he co-write a song with Taylor Swift titled: ‘buh-bah baa ha ba’ ???” she joked.
In May, Hudson even made light of her 50-year age gap with the coach by sharing a photo of herself and Belichick eating Buffalo wings with Old Bay Seasoning.
“OLD BAY WITH MY OLD BAE,” she joked in the caption.
Despite Hudson’s witty social media retorts, her relationship with Belichick has genuinely caused dissension in the sports world. ESPN’s Paul Finebaum called on Belichick to keep his girlfriend and business partner out of the spotlight in June, complaining that the romance had been a “distracting story all offseason.”
“I’m going to go where I shouldn’t go, but then again, we’re talking about Bill Belichick. He has fired coaches, gotten rid of great players, he separated from the greatest quarterback of all time — it’s time for Bill Belichick to fire his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson,” Finebaum told viewers. “Listen, I’m happy for them, but North Carolina hired him because he’s a great coach, not to be a distraction. He’s a major distraction right now in this game of football. I’m sorry.”
The Ringer founder Bill Simmons clashed with “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast host Pablo Torre that same month over the latter’s investigative reporting on the relationship. Torre had raised questions about Hudson’s real age and claimed she’d been banned from the athletic facilities at the University of North Carolina. (Carolina Athletics later denied Hudson had been banned in a statement to Us Weekly.)
“I’ve never seen anybody dine on a stupider story for a week and a half while pretending you’re a journalist,” Simmons, 55, said on his “The Rewatchables” podcast. “What the f*** was that? Seriously. Belichick’s dating a girl. ‘Oh, let me do nine shows about it.’ Settle the f*** down.”
Torre eventually appeared on Simmons’ podcast to talk through the disagreement, as he defended his original reporting.
“To me, it’s like, yes, we have to play the game,” Torre insisted. “And look, it’s not Hollywood where it’s ‘one for me, one for you.’ That’s not what I’m doing here. I believe in every episode to a degree that is almost disturbingly sincere. But to me, the whole game here is if I’m gonna do a Peabody Award-nominated episode … like, that’s not gonna be as popular as the Belichick stuff or the LeBron [James] stuff.”
Meanwhile, Hudson reacted in typically tongue-in-cheek fashion to the dispute by encouraging the journalist to get “a hobby.”
As for the coach’s Tar Heels players, wide receiver Jordan Shipp defended Hudson when asked about the relationship at ACC Media Days on July 24.
“Social media can promote some narrative, but that was not a distraction to us at all,” Shipp insisted. “There was never a problem, like people saying she was running practice. We’d never really see her in the building. That was never a problem.”
There have been persistent rumors that the couple could soon tie the knot ever since Hudson was spotted wearing a ring on her left hand while waiting to catch a flight to Boston at the Raleigh-Durham Airport in May. The couple have yet to confirm any wedding plans.