Under Armour founder Kevin Plank gave television anchor Stephanie Ruhle a private phone with a special email address to communicate with him, sent her confidential financial information about the sportswear maker and enlisted her help to refute concerns about slumping sales, according to newly released court documents.

Plank and Ruhle were questioned by lawyers earlier this year in connection with a shareholder lawsuit, and portions of their depositions and some of their emails were recently unsealed in court. The documents provide new insights into their close ties and her unusual role as his adviser, which The Wall Street Journal first reported in 2019.

Plank and Ruhle corresponded regularly and at all hours, according to the documents. In 2016, Plank sent Ruhle what he described as a secret recording he made of a conversation he just had with another top executive at Under Armour. Earlier that year, the then-Bloomberg anchor advised Under Armour to give internal data to Bloomberg’s competitors to manage negative publicity, the court documents show.

[Ruhle worked as a Bloomberg TV reporter at the time, but later moved to MSNBC. Ruhle testified in a deposition that she advised Plank “as a friend,” but the friendship allegedly had professional benefits for Ruhle. The NY Post reports that Plank helped her land NBA star Steph Curry for a Bloomberg TV interview as a “thank you” for her help in spinning the sales data. Curry had a promotional relationship with Under Armour at the time. This may amount to nothing, but it’s certainly worth watching — and worth seeing what MSNBC will have to say about it. — Ed]