Bill Belichick is living his best life right now. He’s got a new job with total football control at the University of North Carolina, and he’s got a beautiful young girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, on his arm wherever he goes.
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Belichick had been married for nearly 30 years from 1977-2006. He had three kids with his wife, Debby Clarke. After their marriage flamed out, Belichick spent about a decade and a half with Linda Holliday, the executive director of his foundation. That relationship dried up in 2023, right around the same time Belichick’s time in the NFL did.
Despite all of that change in 2023 and 2024, Bill Belichick seems to have come out the other side relatively unscathed. One of his top former players, tight end Rob Gronkowski, called him a “gangster” for how deftly he moved on after two massive cornerstones of his life—Holliday and the Patriots—departed in the same year. Not to mention that the 72-year-old bagged a 24-year-old former cheerleader and Miss Maine USA pageant runner-up in the process.
“Bill Belichick is a gangster. Yeah… It’s pretty wild just to see him out there running around with a young girl like that,” he said on the Dudes on Dudes podcast.
Belichick is enjoying the lifestyle he’s allowed for himself thanks to 40 years of hardcore dedication to football. Not only that, but his shocking romantic life also “gives everyone else hope.” Gronk had a message for Hudson too: keep treating Belichick the way she has been.
“It gives everyone else hope as well. It’s definitely an inspiration, no doubt about that. When I’m 80, hopefully I have a 25-year-old girlfriend… It’s really cool to see this side of Coach Belichick. And whatever his girlfriend’s doing, keep doing it. Because it’s making Coach Belichick be even more awesome.”
Gronkowski spent nearly a decade being coached by Belichick, so they know each other well. Gronk knows the love Belichick has for the game of football, and how hard it was for him to allow the franchise he essentially built to be ripped from him. And yet, unlike Gronkowski and Tom Brady, Belichick was able to leave the game, and stay away.
“I’m proud of him. You wanna know why? Because he left the game of football, and after he left the game of football, and the NFL he kind of switched his mentality…All of a sudden he’s got a young girlfriend, he’s at parties, he’s funny, he’s going to the Tom Brady roast, cracking jokes on myself, cracking jokes on all the other guys that he’s coached throughout his career.”
We didn’t see Bill smile this much in his 23 years on the New England Patriots’ sidelines. No doubt Hudson has a lot to do with that. The pair have now been dating for nearly two years, and Belichick has clearly enjoyed travelling with and bringing his arm candy to red carpets such as the one at this year’s NFL Honors. There, Hudson awed in a gleaming and revealing silver dress.
As Gronkowski said, a year away from the grind of the NFL has “revived” Belichick. It has allowed him to foster a different perspective on his life moving forward.
“It’s like a newfound Coach Belichick. And I love it, man. I love seeing him like this. I love seeing him out in the public eye, he’s doing interviews now, he’s doing podcasts. And now he’s the head coach at UNC.”
Rob Gronkowski clearly envies Bill Belichick for his ability to resist the call of the NFL. That’s probably because Gronk is so much like his old QB, Brady: he does not possess that ability whatsoever. Recent reports indicate that Gronkowski is looking to come out of retirement for the second time in 2025 at the age of 35. Early indications are that he will land in Denver with the Broncos.
