Pablo Torre clarifies report that Jordon Hudson was ‘banned’ from UNC facilities

Earlier this month, former ESPN commentator Pablo Torre sent shockwaves through the sports world when he revealed Jordon Hudson, Bill Belichick‘s infamous 24-year-old girlfriend and business partner, was “banned from UNC’s football facility.” Torre used more specific wording on his Pable Torre Finds Out podcast, describing it as a decision from North Carolina administrators to informally bar Hudson from the team facility, as opposed to a formal ban.

Of course, North Carolina quickly disputed Torre’s claim with a carefully-worded statement that explained Hudson “is not an employee at the Univeristy or (for) Carolina Athletics,” but is “welcome” inside the team facility. Hardly the most full-throarted denial, but it certainly cast a shadow of doubt over his reporting.

Torre attempted to clear the air and connect the dots during a recent appearance on the Pro Football Talk PM podcast with NBC Sports insider Mike Florio.

“Thank you for letting me clarify. Part of the thing that I find as I do magazine-style journalism in a podcast medium, is that, when I say ‘ban’ I mean it and stand by it, but I’m also not implying snipers were ready to take her out,” Torre told Florio earlier this week, acknowledging the inherent nuance with the word “ban,” including its potential legal meaning when taken to the extreme. “So, there are gradations. Given the terror-alert scale of banning, I was probably a bit flippant in my conversational presentation about what it means when the university says to Jordon Hudson: ‘You’re not welcome here, you’re not wanted here, you cannot be here.’ … And so the PR statement that you just cited, it’s fascinating as a PR-statement-ologist. They could’ve said, ‘This reporting is incorrect. She is welcomed here anytime.’ They did not.”

Pablo Torre calls for Bill Belichick, Jordon Hudson defenders to ‘do some reporting’ of their own

Torre then addressed the subsequent pushback UNC and newly-hired PR specialist Brandon Faber have promoted in friendly sit-down interviews with ESPN analyst Ryan Clark on The Pivot Podcast and Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, in which Belichick claims Hudson has had no direct impact on the Tar Heels football program.

“To add a bit of a wrinkle here, CBS Sunday Morning initially said — and this is something I did not put in the episode but reported — they wanted to that thing … at Chapel Hill,” Torre continued. “They wanted to do that at North Carolina, and Jordon Hudson was the one that said, ‘No, no. We have that for something else.’ So already she’s affecting one of the biggest platforms to market the football team. And then of course, getting to Hard Knocks, they’re supposed to do that, and then Jordon Hudson was responsible for that blowing up too.

“So the whole idea that she’s off to the side, she was never involved, I’ve seen enough reporters that love to suck up to coaches that are like, ‘Look, the Jordon Hudson story was widely exaggerated from the start,’” Torre concluded. “And all I can tell them is that you guys got to do some reporting if you think that it’s plausible, that we are overestimating the impact here. Because it’s verified, documented and now increasingly public. Like they’re missing the story, and that’s what’s also darkly humorous about this.”

Report: HBO pulled out of Hard Knocks due to Jordon Hudson demands, refuting Bill Belichick story

Last week, an extensive New York Times feature on Hudson revealed HBO and its popular Hard Knocks docuseries pulled out of a potential opportunity to follow Belichick during his first few months as the Tar Heels coach. That was due in large part to Hudson’s heavy-handedness in as her role his PR specialist.

“This winter, producers at N.F.L. Films decided that a new season of its sports docuseries, ‘Hard Knocks,’ would focus on Mr. Belichick’s efforts to build the U.N.C. football program ahead of the 2025 season,” the New York Times’ Katherine Rosman wrote. “HBO agreed to air it.

“But days before they were set to announce the series, Ms. Hudson demanded she be granted content approval and partial ownership of the show, according to a person familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by producers to speak to a reporter. N.F.L. Films pulled the plug.”

— On3’s Grant Grubbs contributed to this report.