The mother of Utah Jazz recruit and former Duke star Kyle Filipowski opened up about the schism between his son and the family.
“It’s like a wire has been pulled in my brain,” Becky Filipowski said. The Salt Lake Tribune in a revealing interview. “Some days I can find a little peace, and there are days that are quite painful.”
Kyle, 20, was selected by the Jazz in the second round of the June draft. NBA Project amid shocking allegations he was “groomed” by his 27-year-old fiancée Caitlin Hutchison from the age of 15 – something Becky now questions.
After being taken in the first round of the draft, ESPN reported that some teams avoided Kyle due to concerns about his relationship with Hutchison, which allegedly led to his estrangement from the rest of the Filipowski clan. Using the term “Mormon grooming,” Kyle’s brother accused Hutchison of “coercive control” and “conspiring” to entrap him at an early age.
Becky responded to reports about Kyle on social media, writing, “You are opening a 2 year old issue…and she is 28 (sic) with a final goal 3 years ago to have a diamond ring on her hand when Kyle left Duke. He was still in high school.”
Filipowski, 20, has been dating Hutchinson, 27, since he was a senior in high school.
Becky Filipowski is pictured with her son Kyle and husband David when Kyle was in high school
Today, though she remains estranged from Kyle, Becky regrets speaking about her son’s relationship with Hutchinson, who declined to speak to the Tribune for this article.
“We didn’t ask for this,” she told the Tribune. “ESPN released that report and opened the case. We responded to it. This is an issue that has been a pain point for us for years leading up to draft night.”
“I see all these reports and they’re speculating without doing any research. … Sometimes I wish we had never talked about it.”
To be clear, the Filipowski and Hutchinson families were longtime friends, and Caitlin’s mother, Amanda, played college basketball with Becky at California State University, Long Beach. And the photo of a young Kyle and Hutchinson that circulated online after the draft was actually taken at a barbecue with the two families in 2016.
As Becky explained to the Tribune, Kyle didn’t admit to dating Hutchinson until November 2021, when he was 18 and enrolled at the Massachusetts boarding school Wilbraham & Monson Academy. As his freshman year at Duke approached, Kyle told his mother that Hutchinson could “protect him from other girls, drugs and alcohol.”
Kyle Filipowski and fiancée Caitlin Hutchison are seen after Duke wins the 2023 ACC title
The young couple got engaged after knowing each other for most of their lives.
Hutchinson is seen consoling Filipowski during the NBA draft at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn
Later, while attending prom with Hutchinson, who is in his 20s, Kyle posted a photo of the couple together online with the caption: “People are going to look at you. Make it worth it.”
That’s when Becky said she began expressing concerns about her relationship with Kyle, her dorm parent at Wilbraham & Monson, and even with the Duke staff members who were recruiting him.
“I warned them what was going on,” she said. “And even then, they were like, ‘OK, you know, we’re okay.'”
But Becky doesn’t just blame Hutchinson for her estrangement from her son.
In fact, she fears she’s to blame for all of this after struggling for years with depression following the deaths of her mother and grandmothers a few years earlier. Becky has since battled cancer, which she says made it harder for her to be a part of Kyle’s life while he was at school.
Kyle’s older brother Daniel, 29, posted a cryptic tweet referring to “Mormon grooming and brainwashing” and suggesting readers “connect some dots” before getting more direct in criticizing Hutchison for allegedly manipulating his brother into a relationship.
Becky also rejects the idea that “Mormon grooming” took place between Hutchinson and Kyle, as her brother suggested online.
“This behavior would be bad [for Hutchison] “Whatever his faith,” Becky said, without going into details.
At no point during the interview did Becky make any specific allegations against Hutchinson.
However, she did reveal a text message exchange between Kyle and his brother, Daniel.
“I don’t need you to criticize me and my relationship because you don’t know anything. [about] ”, the message reads.
Kyle would eventually write his mother off in an email.
“I did everything I could to convince you to support my choices, and you chose not to,” Kyle wrote. “…Because of the way you treated me and continue to treat me, I don’t want you in my life. I wanted you to hear that from me.”
Becky said she is still “grieving” the loss of her relationship with Kyle, who is just over a month away from starting his NBA career at Utah’s training camp.
The Jazz band, which is owned by a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints, is not concerned about Kyle’s relationship.
“We’re taking a deep dive into all the draft candidates,” Steven Schwartz, the Jazz’s vice president of basketball strategy, told the Tribune. “We’re more than happy to have Kyle join the Jazz, and we’re comfortable with everything that’s going on. We’re really excited about who he is as a person, so we’re not worried about it at all.”
