After Bill Belichick issued a statement on Wednesday suggesting that his interview on CBS Sunday Morning was “selectively edited,” the network has responded.
A CBS News spokesperson released a statement on Wednesday afternoon wholly denying Belichick’s assertions.
“When we agreed to speak with 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,” the statement read.
The response comes after Belichick, in a statement released through the University of North Carolina where he now coaches football, suggested that the CBS interview “presents selectively edited clips and stills from just a few minutes of the interview to suggest a false narrative – that [girlfriend] Jordon [Hudson] was attempting to control the conversation – which is simply not true.”
On Sunday, CBS included a clip of Hudson interrupting Belichick’s interview after anchor Tony Dokoupil asked a seemingly innocuous question about how the couple met. Per later reports, Hudson’s interruptions were not limited to just that one instance, and her behavior apparently delayed the interview by about 30 minutes.
In the aftermath of Sunday’s interview, Belichick and Hudson have been subject to a slew of negative headlines about their relationship, and Hudson’s influence over the legendary head coach and the North Carolina Tar Heels football program.
It seems unlikely that CBS would deceptively edit what was largely a general interest piece about Belichick and his upcoming book, despite the coach’s statement suggesting otherwise. And even if they did, Belichick said in his own statement that the interview was meant to “focus solely on the contents of the book.” CBS, prior to introducing Hudson as a topic of discussion during the interview, pulled a quote directly from Belichick’s book about how Hudson is his “creative muse.” That alone would make a question about her completely in-bounds, even if the interview was limited to topics pertaining to the book which, again, CBS says wasn’t the case.
If nothing else, the circumstances surrounding this saga are incredibly bizarre. During his long tenure coaching in the NFL, Belichick never litigated anything through the media or via press releases, no matter what the press was saying about him. That’s no longer the case with Hudson by his side.