President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is opening up about his drug abuse struggles and a relationship with his brother’s widow.
“I spent more time on my hands and knees picking through rugs, smoking anything that even remotely resembled crack cocaine. I probably smoked more Parmesan cheese than anyone that you know,” Hunter Biden told “CBS Sunday Morning.” “I mean, I went one time for 13 days without sleeping, and smoking crack and drinking vodka exclusively throughout that entire time.”
Biden, 51, was kicked out of the Navy Reserve after failing a drug test and entered rehab several times for substance abuse problems. He told CBS that he started binge-drinking vodka so much after his brother Beau’s death that his father intervened.
“He came to my apartment one time,” Hunter said Sunday. “And this was when he was still in office as vice president, and so he kinda ditched his Secret Service, figured out a way to get over to the house. And I said, ‘What are you doin’ here?’ He said, ‘Honey, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘Dad, I’m fine.’ He said, ‘You’re not fine.’”
Hunter Biden appeared on the CBS show to promote his new memoir, “Beautiful Things,” which hits stores Tuesday.
According to NPR, the book is largely about addiction. He wrote that he first bought crack cocaine at age 18 and started drinking in high school.
He credits his wife, Melissa, with helping get his life under control in 2019 but before that, he was in a relationship with Hallie Biden, the wife of his late brother. He said he spent a lot of time at her house to help with the kids after Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, sleeping in the den and taking the children to school in the morning.
Hunter Biden said he started dating Hallie in 2017 after splitting from his wife, Kathleen, while they were still legally married. He said that the relationship began after he completed a stint in a treatment center in Arizona.
“(Hallie) flew out the next day. I was at my lowest, she was at her neediest, and we clung to each other with abandon. We talked at length about how much we had come to rely on each other, how our health and well-being seemed dependent on the love we’d grown to share,” he wrote.
According to the book, he also convinced his father to put out a statement approving of the affair.
“‘Dad,’ I told him, ‘if people find out, but they think you’re not approving of this, it makes it seem wrong,” Hunter wrote, according to Fox News.
Hunter dated Hallie for two years and reportedly fathered a child with an Arkansas woman, Lunden Alexis Roberts, during that time. He also has three children from his previous marriage to Kathleen, and a son named Beau with wife Melissa.
Hunter and Hallie broke up in April 2019 and a month later, he married Melissa Cohen, 35, after just six days of dating.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, left, walks with his wife Melissa Cohen and son Beau before boarding Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Friday, March 26, 2021.AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Besides his relationships, Hunter has also been a target among critics of his father, President Joe Biden, over a laptop that was allegedly obtained in October, just before the 2020 election. Hunter Biden’s business dealings became a hot button topic for then-President Donald Trump as Hunter faced questions about his service on the board of a Ukrainian gas company and an investigation into his taxes by the Justice Department.
Hunter Biden told CBS that he didn’t recall dropping off a laptop at a Delaware computer repair shop and doesn’t know if the alleged laptop is his.
“There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me,” he said Sunday.
He also said he couldn’t comment on the DOJ investigation, but is “cooperating completely.”
“And I am absolutely certain, 100% certain that at the end of the investigation, that I will be cleared of any wrongdoing,” Hunter said. “I’m 100% certain of it. And all I can do is cooperate, and trust in the process.”