Wanda Sykes thinks a certain mermaid fell for a ploy, hook, line and sinker.
On Thursday’s episode of “Today with Jenna & Friends” the comedian and co-host Jenna Bush Hager wasted no time jumping right in to discuss University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill head football coach Bill Belichick, 73, and his 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson’s seemingly strange romance.
After unpacking the pair’s odd dynamic during a CBS News interview over the weekend — in which Hudson seemed weirdly controlling — Bush Hager was eager to analyze photos of the couple posted to Hudson’s Instagram grid.
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
The “Pootie Tang” alum seemed particularly creeped out by one cringey photo the two shot together on the beach. The photo, which is part of a slideshow post, features the former NFL coach dressed as a fisherman holding a rod while Hudson dons a mermaid costume and lies awkwardly in the sand, belly up.
“What is this?” Sykes said with an air of disbelief before getting seriously concerned for Belichick’s well-being.
“Coach, look, if there’s a problem, send me one of your Super Bowl rings,” Sykes said, giving the former New England Patriot an out if he felt his life was in danger. “Ship me one of your rings, and Jenna and I will come get you!”
“Is he OK? What’s happening?” the comedian mused elsewhere in the segment.
After Bush Hager and Sykes joked around about how the photos gave them secondhand embarrassment, the comedian’s shock had subsided enough that she shared a theory on how they came to be. Bush Hager was under the assumption that Hudson forced the photoshoot on Belichick — and Sykes agreed, but she had a caveat.
“Just think about it,” Sykes began. “Do you really want to have a conversation with a 24 year old?”
She continued, “I mean, I’m 61! And if someone 24 starts talking to me, I’m like, ‘Oh God, make it stop. Please make it stop!’ You know what? … I would go, ‘You know, yeah! Let’s go dress up like a mermaid’ just so I can shut you up. If this will stop you from talking, give me the fishing rod. As long as I don’t have to have a conversation.”
The couple has received an onslaught of attention since Belichick’s interview with CBS News. During the segment, Belichick was asked how the couple met, and before he could answer, Hudson piped up from off camera and said sternly, “We’re not talking about this,” essentially shutting the question down.
The bizarre moment quickly went viral, prompting Hudson to do some seemingly sketchy damage control on social media, which backfired. This spurred Belichick to defend Hudson in a statement sent to HuffPost on Wednesday. In the statement, Belichick said he was told that the CBS interview would focus solely on his new book, “The Art of Winning ― Lessons from My Life in Football,” and he was “surprised when unrelated topics were introduced.”
“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,” he wrote.
Belichick emphasized that Hudson was “not deflecting any specific question or topic” but was “simply doing her job.”
“Some of the clips make it appear as though we were avoiding the question of how we met,” Belichick said. “But we have been open about the fact that Jordon and I met on a flight to Palm Beach in 2021.”
The couple’s story that they met on a flight is one that Sykes certainly was not buying on “Today” Wednesday.
“I think it’s public knowledge how they met,” Bush Hager said. “They met on an airplane. What’s so bad about that?”
“Right… Yeah, on an airplane,” Sykes said sarcastically while side-eyeing the backstage staff and audience suspiciously — and receiving a ton of laughter in response.
Check out Sykes’ and Bush Hager’s full conversation on the topic above!
Read the full article here
