Hunter Biden Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Hunter Biden

• When he was four years old, he was in a car accident with his brother Hunter, his mother Neilia, and his sister Naomi while going shopping during the Christmas vacation in 1972. While Neilia and Naomi passed away in the accident, he and his brother were severely wounded.

• Hunter Biden sustained a fractured skull and severe traumatic brain injuries, which took him months to recover from.
  

  Beau Biden (left) with Naomi and Hunter Biden during their childhood

• After Neilia passed away, Joe decided not to get married to look after his sons and his political career. As per sources, Hunter and Beau often talked to Joe about getting married by asking “when were ‘we’ going to get married.”

• In an interview, Hunter claimed that he and Beau got involved in politics at an early age as their father, Joe, used to take them to political rallies.
  

  Joe Biden with his sons when they both were at the Archmere Academy

• As a child, he managed to convince Joe Biden to let the kids from the neighbouring areas use their residential swimming pool.

• Hunter refers to his biological mother Neilia as “Mom” and his stepmother Jill as “Mommy.”

• Whenever Joe Biden was in Washington, D.C. as a senator, he would often seek permission from Congress to allow him to bring his sons to his official office in the Capitol.
  

  Hunter Biden with Joe Biden while Joe was giving a speech during a political event organised by the Democratic Party

• While studying at the Archmere Academy, Hunter helped Beau in his student body’s presidential campaign by distributing flyers. As per him, while he was “unruly,” Beau was very “disciplined.”

• In 1988, Joe was reportedly motivated by Beau and Hunter to run for the presidential elections in the US. However, due to a lack of funds, Joe decided to retract his name from the elections. This reportedly disappointed Beau and Hunter.

• Hunter entered into a fistfight with a couple of people who attended a football match after Joe took his name back. The incident occurred when Joe, Beau, and Hunter were attending a rugby match, where a group of people started taunting Biden and his family and heckled them.

• After completing his graduation in 1992, Hunter Biden enrolled at the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC), where he worked for over a year at a church in Portland, Oregon.

• It was during this time that he came into contact with another fellow volunteer Kathleen Buhle whom he started dating.

• In 1993, after dating for three months, Kathleen got pregnant as a result of which she and Hunter got married.
  

  Kathleen Buhle with Hunter Biden during their wedding ceremony

• Thereafter, he applied to join Yale University to pursue graduation; however, he was rejected.

• In 1995, he enrolled at the Georgetown University Law Center; however, he left his law studies there after one year and joined the Yale Law School a year later.

• To study at the Law Center, Hunter and Beau took a student loan to cover their expenses. To earn more money to look after his boarding and lodging expenses, Hunter took up a job as a car parker and a beef box unloader at a factory. Beau once talked about this, in an interview, and said,
  

  Hunter was always out there, doing something to gain a little bit of money.”

  

  Hunter Biden’s photo taken when he was studying at the Yale Law School

• According to sources, Hunter did not wish to pursue a career as an attorney but as an artist. He used to greatly follow the works of the authors Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff. He then used to read Charles Bukowski’s book, Post Office.

• He had decided to study Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at Syracuse University, where Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff had studied.

• In 1997, after completing his formal education, Hunter, his wife, and daughter returned to Wilmington, where he helped Joe Biden in preparing for his Senate re-elections. Joe appointed him as the deputy manager of his electoral campaign.
  

  Hunter Biden standing behind Joe Biden while Joe was addressing the media during his Senate re-election

• For this, Hunter and his family relocated to a rented apartment close to Joe Biden’s election campaign office and took up a part-time job as a consultant at MBNA Corporation, where a lot of his colleagues donated funds for Joe’s election campaigning; he managed to secure $200,000 in donations.

• He had to delay beginning to work at MBNA as he assisted Joe in his campaigning. He went on to become executive vice president of the company. He later left the company.

• In 1997, Hunter purchased an old property needing repair in Wilmington. The property had not been occupied since the end of the American Civil War in the 1880s.

• In the same year, joined the office of U.S. Attorney as a prosecutor in Philadelphia. It was at the same place, where his elder brother Beau was working. He later relocated from Wilmington to Philadelphia and started living with his brother.

• At the office of the AG, Hunter looked after the cases of mortgaging and money lending.

• By the late 1990s, Hunter had started earning more than his father as he used to get more than a hundred thousand dollars in salary and had received a massive signing bonus.

• In 1998, he expressed his desire to become a lawyer for the Clinton-led administration for which he contacted William Daley, the Commerce Secretary. Daley was a close associate of Joe.

• In the same year, Hunter Biden worked in President Bill Clinton’s administration in the Department of Commerce (DOC) and assisted the government in making policies related to e-commerce. He remained in the department till 2001.

• Thereafter, Hunter began working as a policy director in Dalye’s firm.

• Thereafter, he sold his house which he bought in 1997 and rented an apartment in Washington, D.C.

• In 2000, he once again sought to change his company as the income from the previous one did not cover his rent and other expenses. Therefore, he began working in a lobbying firm with Vincent Versage.

• In 2001, on the persuasion of Robert Skomorucha, a close family friend, Hunter worked on collecting and designating funds for one of St. Joseph University’s student-volunteer programs which aimed at helping the poor and underprivileged kids pursue education.

• In the same year, Hunter started working as a lobbyist. In an interview, he revealed that it was during this time that he started attending after work parties, where he began consuming large quantities of alcohol and other types of substances.

• Thereafter, he rejoined MBNA at an annual salary of $100,000. He reportedly joined the company as Joe Biden was about to introduce the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in the Senate, which would have harmed the organisation.
  

  President George Washington signing the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act

• In an interview, a friend of Hunter claimed that he never asked Joe for favours while searching for a job. He further claimed that due to Joe’s influence as a politician, Hunter even received a job offer to work at the leading military aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas.

• For working with lobbyists, he made a name for himself and often featured in newspapers. He played a vital role in brokering numerous deals between politicians, heading the ministries, and lobbyists regarding government contracts.

• In 2001, he started a company named Biden & Belair, a legal firm.

• In the early 2000s, Hunter used to visit the Bombay Club, an Indian restaurant in Washington, D.C., where he liked eating Indian cuisine. He used to go there at least three to four times a week.

• Later, he gave an interview in which he claimed that he began drinking alcohol as a teenager. As a student in school, he started smoking cigarettes, especially the Marlboro Red brand.
  

  A photo of Hunter Biden taken while he was lighting a cigarette

• Thereafter, Hunter Biden started consuming banned substances like cocaine and meth. He once revealed that when he started using drugs, he had no idea how to use them, so he started consuming drugs by filling them with cigarette stems.

• Due to his inability to afford the costs of maintaining a family in Washington, D.C., he chose to relocate his family to Wilmington, from where he commuted to the capital daily by train.

• He revealed once that he often missed the train as he used to go to Army and Navy Club, where he used to indulge in drinking. He talked about it, in an interview, and said,
  

  When I found myself making the decision to have another drink or get on a train, I knew I had a problem.”

• Due to excess drinking, Hunter Biden’s wife, Kathleen Buhle, later decided to leave him and move to Washington, D.C. along with the kids.

• Thereafter, to become sobre, Hunter got admitted to the Crossroads Centre Antigua, a rehabilitation centre, where he underwent therapy for a month. Hunter was looked after by Beau while he was at the centre.

• After he returned, he was invited to attend and give a speech at the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Dupont Circle.

• Hunter’s income decreased significantly after coming out of the rehabilitation centre, yet he decided to purchase a $1.6-million house in an affluent neighbourhood. For this, he took a mortgage with a 110 per cent value. Since he had no savings left with him, he did not pay anything in downpayment and purchased the house entirely on a mortgage.

• Hunter jointly purchased Paradigm, a hedge-fund group that claimed to manage $1.5 billion in assets, for $21 million in 2006. He reportedly took a loan and borrowed some money from his friends and relatives to buy it. However, he later retracted himself from the business after he learned that the group’s value was far less than what he was told.

• Another reason he cited for pulling out of the venture was that the lawyer with which he was working was a criminal who back then was awaiting trial for fraudulent activities. After pulling out of the business, Hunter lost approximately $1.3 million which he called “a tragic comedy.”

• In the same year, Hunter joined the board of directors of Amtrak; President George W. Bush recommended his name to the organisation for nomination.

• In July 2006, he became the vice chairman of the company. He remained in the post till January 2009; he resigned before the end of his tenure.

• He has also served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.

• He later applied for a million-dollar loan against his house at the Washington First Bank to cover the losses he had incurred from the hedge fund business.

• In 2007, some of his hedge fund business partners filed a lawsuit against him in a court in New York; however, Hunter was acquitted of all the charges.

• After Joe Biden announced his nomination for the post of Vice President of the United States in 2008, Hunter became his chief campaign manager and used to travel from his work in Washington, D.C. to Des Moines.
  

  Hunter Biden with Joe Biden while the latter was elected as the Vice President of the US

• According to sources, Obama, after choosing Biden as his running mate, held a closed press conference, where one of his close associates criticised Hunter for investing in several hedge funds, earmarking businesses, and lobbying for clients in the government.

• Soon after, Hunter dropped out of all such businesses and told his clients that he had decided to not lobby on their behalf to the government. He talked about it, in an interview, and said,
  

  I wanted my father to have a clean slate. I did not want to limit him in any way.”

• He started his business Seneca Global Advisors, a boutique consulting firm, in September 2008. It was named one of the largest firms in Finger Lakes in New York State.

• He later started assisting several Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in starting their businesses by investing in them.

• He became the co-founder of Rosemont Seneca Partners in 2009.

• In the same year, he also co-founded venture capital firm Eudora Global.

• In 2012, Hunter Biden came into contact with the Chinese investor Jonathan Li, who ran a Chinese private equity fund named Bohai Capital, with the intent of investing Chinese Yuan and other resources in Chinese companies functioning in and out of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

• He started an investiture company named BHR Partners with Li in June 2013 and became its unpaid board member. He remained in the post till Joe’s election to the post of President of the US in 2020.

• Despite visiting rehabilitation centres, he has relapsed many times. In 2013, he relapsed for the third time after he consumed alcohol after being sober for seven years. He reportedly began drinking liquor while hiding it from his family.

• Due to excessive drinking, he suffered a bout of shingles in the same year. To tackle this, doctors prescribed him painkillers; however, after the prescription ended, he resumed drinking alcohol.

• In December 2013, Joe Biden took Hunter to Beijing, where he met the Chinese delegates who helped Hunter and Li expand their business among the influential Chinese businessmen. Hunter, in Beijing, also introduced Li to Joe.

• Joe’s decision received negative feedback from senior members of the Democratic Party. They believed that if the situation became public, it would attract criticism, as people might think Joe took Hunter on an official visit for personal gain.
  

  Hunter Biden following Joe Biden and his sister out of Air Force 1 during Joe’s official trip to China

• In 2014, he sent one of his close associates to Ukraine to broker a deal with Mykola Zlochevsky, the then Minister of Ecology, the co-founder of Burisma, one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas producers.

• In the same year, when Zlochevsky was removed from the post, an investigation was started to determine the legality of the business and the granting of a resource exploration license to Burisma, which worked in cooperation with BHR.

• The partnership between the two enterprises ended when the bank accounts of Zlochevsky were ceased after the investigations.

• Thereafter, he joined the Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, a legal firm, as a senior employee. In early 2014, he was given the position of counsel in the law firm.

• Burisma once again contacted Hunter and his company in April 2014 seeking his advice on improving its functionality. Hunter advised Boies Schiller Flexner to conduct a third-party investigation into Burisma’s record so that its corrupt mechanism can be identified and resolved.
  

  A snip from Burisma’s official website which had listed Hunter Biden on its Board of Directors page

• In July 2014, a committee of Boies Schiller Flexner led by Hunter published a classified report indicating that the company was not the target of the Ukrainian government; rather, it was Zlochevsky who was under scrutiny because he could be “vulnerable to investigation for financial crimes” and for “perceived abuse of power.”

• He later informed Burisma and Boies Schiller Flexner that he would no longer partake in their matters. According to reports, he made this decision after Hunter’s dealings with Burisma were highlighted by several news channels. However, the situation calmed down when the Foreign Ministry released a statement stating that Hunter was a “private citizen doing business.”

• Later, Hunter urged the US authorities to remove the Secret Service (a special force that guards the president, vice president, and their immediate families) agents who accompanied him everywhere he went. Initially, this request was rejected; however, later it was granted to him.

• He once criticized former President Barack Obama when Joe Biden endorsed the LGBTQIA+ community, while Obama and his staff took some time to adopt a similar stance.

• He maintained a distance from Joe’s White House staff to avoid any misrepresentation by the media, as he did not want his presence to be perceived as an attempt to gain favours from Obama or other influential figures. In an interview, he said,
  

  I did not want to be in a situation where I am playing golf with the President or one of his aides and look at my phone and see another headline that reads – President Makes A Joke About Biden.”

  

  Hunter with Joe Biden and the then President Barack Obama

• After Hunter Biden started making good money, he not only paid the debts he took to finish law school but also paid off the loan that Beau had taken to become a lawyer.

• His ex-wife and Michelle Obama are good friends and used to attend the SoulCycle and Solidcore exercises together in the White House.

• Hunter decided to join the US Navy as a reservist after getting motivated by a retired Australian Navy Intelligence officer, who joined the US Navy after completing his service in Australia.

• At first, the US Navy granted Hunter an age waiver. He was then granted a second waiver when he disclosed his alcohol abuse in the past. After completing his formal training, he joined the US Navy as a reservist. He was given the oath of a soldier by Joe Biden in the White House in the Office of the Vice President.

• Later, he was posted to the Naval Station in Norfolk, where he was allotted the task of handling public affairs. He, however, wanted to serve in the intelligence wing of the navy, which he was not allotted.

• In 2014, he was discharged from the military after he tested positive for consuming cocaine. Hunter, talked about this, in an interview, and said,
  

  It was the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy. I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge.”

• Hunter claimed that he consumed drugs after he met two South African tourists who were visiting Norfolk after which he lost his wits and had to be taken back to the base by his elder brother Beau.

• After discharge, he contested the Navy’s decision by writing a letter to the Naval Command saying that he “unknowingly” consumed drugs and had “no idea of drugs being present in his blood.” His letter of appeal was not considered.

• Hunter then decided to not re-appeal his discharge as he believed that it would increase the chances of the matter getting leaked to the media.

• After this, Hunter decided to once again try to quit drinking for which he went to Tijuana in Mexico. Thereafter, he went to Flagstaff, Arizona, where he met with Thom Knoles, a practitioner of Vedic meditation.

• In late 2014, Hunter was admitted to the Esalen Institute in California, where he underwent several sessions of a twelve-step yoga retreat.

• In 2015, after Beau passed away, Hunter Biden expressed his desire to contest the elections for the Senate. However, he decided not to do so after his wife reportedly advised him against it.

• Thereafter, he and his wife moved in together on the agreement to attend marriage therapy together. In the therapy, it was decided that if Hunter began drinking again, he would have to leave the house.

• He moved out of the house after he consumed liquor again on his 22nd wedding anniversary.

• Hunter started getting close to his deceased brother’s wife Hallie Biden thereafter.

• In 2015, he enrolled at the Charles O’Brien Center for Addiction Treatment at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he was prescribed two types of medicines; one to lessen his cravings and another to make him feel nauseated if he drank alcohol.

• Thereafter, on his wife’s insistence, he joined an inpatient program for executives at Caron Treatment Centers, where he used the pseudonym Hunter Smith. There, he was given a breathalyzer with a built-in camera.

• In July 2015, relations between him and his wife began deteriorating after hackers revealed that Hunter, under the false name Robert Biden, was on a dating website, Ashley Madison, that exclusively hosted married couples. Hunter, however, later denied him being active on the website.

• In October 2015, Hunter and his wife decided to separate from one another.

• According to sources, his separation from his wife mentally impacted him as a result of which he started consuming more alcohol. A friend of his, in an interview, claimed that Hunter stopped moving out of his house and only left when he needed a new bottle of Vodka. He said,
  

  For weeks, he left the apartment only to buy bottles of Smirnoff vodka at Logan Circle Liquor. Several times a day, his father called him, and Hunter assured him that he was O.K.”

• His drinking habit worsened so much that Joe Biden had to go to his apartment to talk to him and offer his assistance by reportedly saying, “I need you. What do we have to do?”

• On Joe Biden’s persuasion, Hunter went on a vacation to Lake Tahoe, where he learned skiing. He then went to Washington, D.C., where Joe had arranged his anti-drinking therapy at the Kolmac Outpatient Recovery Center.

• Hunter Biden is known for making friends with every person he meets. He once befriended a homeless middle-aged woman named Bicycle (as she used to carry a cycle everywhere she went) and used to give her $20 to help her buy cigarettes.

• He has often worked to uplift the poor. According to sources, he often asked the homeless people to stay with him in his apartment. Some of the homeless people stayed in the apartment for months.

• He started working for clients as an attorney in 2016 and rejoined the Burisma board once again. He reportedly decided to do so as Joe Biden had exited the office of the Vice President and had expressed his desire to not run for the Presidential post.

• He then started looking after Burisma’s dealings with European clients.

• In June of the same year, he relapsed once again when he consumed cocaine offered by a stranger during a party in Europe. After returning to the US, he was told to undergo a blood test by the institute where he was undergoing a rehabilitation program. However, Hunter refused to undergo the test fearing the results might get leaked to the media.

• He once went to Los Angeles, where he lost his wallet at the airport which contained Beau Biden’s Attorney General identity card and his driver’s license. Hunter had revealed that he stayed in LA for a week where he consumed a lot of alcohol and cocaine. For this, he received scolding from Joe Biden. While trying to buy cocaine, he was reportedly robbed at gunpoint by a seller.

• Thereafter, he went to Miami, where he asked Hallie to accompany him. They reportedly stayed there together.

• After Hunter and Hallie returned to their homes, they decided to keep their relations secret; however, the news leaked to the media following which Hunter’s wife filed for a divorce in a family court in Washington, D.C. in December 2016.

• In 2017, Hunter asked Joe Biden to conduct a press conference to show his acceptance of Hallie and Hunter’s relationship. Joe agreed to his demands but did so to avoid negatively impacting Hunter’s emotional and mental condition. Hunter recalled his conversation with Joe and said,
  

  I said, Dad, Dad, you have to. He said, Hunter, I don’t know if I should. But I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I said, Dad, if people find out, but they think you’re not approving of this, it makes it seem wrong. The kids have to know, Dad, that there’s nothing wrong with this, and the one person who can tell them that is you.”

• Even though Hunter did not earn a lot, he was asked to pay an alimony of $37,000 to his wife after the divorce. According to a friend of his, his financial condition worsened after it due to which his credit card transactions often got declined.

• Later, the Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming met Hunter and handed him over a 2.8-carat diamond as a gift. It was later contested by his ex-wife.

• Thereafter, he started working for CEFC China Energy and helped them in getting deals in the US. He helped the company get a deal to invest $40 million in a liquefied-natural-gas project on Monkey Island, in Louisiana.

• He was then appointed as a member of the board of the World Food Program USA, a nonprofit that generates support for the U.N. World Food Programme. He was promoted to the post of board chairman of the WFP; he held the post for four years.
  

  Hunter Biden giving a speech at an event of the World Food Program organised by the United Nations (UN)

• Thereafter, on Ye Jianming’s insistence, Hunter agreed to take up the case of Patrick Ho, Ye’s associate, after he was arrested by the US law enforcement agencies.

• In 2018, Ye was arrested in China for his involvement in the corrupt practices in Chad and Uganda. This led to the end of the partnership between Hunter Biden and him.

• In the same year, Burisma offered to extend his tenure as a member of the board; however, Hunter denied it because of being scrutinised in the US and the EU for his involvement with the company.

• Later, he was appointed to the President’s Advisory Board of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

• In May 2019, Hunter met Melissa Cohen, his wife, while he was on a trip to South Africa, where she was filming a documentary.

• In the same year, Hunter got inked with “Shalom” in the exact place where Melissa had been inked.

• As per him, he had not informed Joe Biden about his marriage to Melissa as it happened a few weeks after they met.

• Following Trump‘s election to the Office of the President, he called for an inquiry into Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma and other companies operating in Ukraine.

• In 2019, he resigned from his post at BHR Partners due to allegations of corruption by President Trump.

• In 2020, he started working on his passion for making art, especially painting.
  

  A photo of Hunter Biden taken while he was sitting in his recreational room

• In 2021, Georges Bergès, an art connoisseur, invited Biden to exhibit his art to the public at his public exhibition in New York.

• Hunter Biden wrote a book, Beautiful Things, in the same year in which he claimed that the passing of Beau Biden impacted his emotional state as a result of which he started consuming more drugs and alcohol.
  

  Cover page of the book Beautiful Things

• Thereafter, American lawyer Patrick Kevin Morris bought a painting made by Hunter for $875,000. Another customer purchased one of his paintings for $50,000.

• According to sources, the White House has several paintings that Hunter Biden has made on its walls.

• On 1 December 2024, President Joe Biden passed an executive order that sought to pardon Hunter Biden of all the charges of corruption. Joe Biden claimed that Hunter was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”

• He is an avid animal lover and loves dogs and cats.

• In June 2024, a report surfaced on the internet which claimed that Hunter spent lavishly on his lifestyle. He received a total of $6.9 million from 2016 to 2019 from his different businesses. For working with the CEFC China Energy Co Ltd, he received $1 million in 2017.

• Later, it was revealed that he spent more than $683,000 on payments to women who were “romantically involved with him.” He also spent over $397,000 and $189,000 on buying clothes and adult entertainment. The report also claimed that he withdrew over $1.6 million from ATM transactions between 2016 to 2019.

• As of December 2024, Hunter Biden is sober and has not indulged in consuming drugs or alcohol.