Hunter Biden is speaking out about his past relationship with his late brother, Beau’s, wife. While promoting his memoir, Beautiful Things, on CBS Sunday Morning, the 51-year-old son of President Joe Biden and the late Neilia Biden opened up about his past relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie.
Beau died in 2015 at age 46 after a battle with brain cancer. Hunter split from his wife, Kathleen, months after Beau’s death. Hunter and Hallie were romantically linked in 2017.
“I think people were confused by it. And I understand that. I mean, I really do,” Hunter said. “To me, it’s not something that is difficult to explain. Because it came out of a real, overwhelming grief that we both shared.”
“We were together, and trying to do the right thing,” he continued. “That grief turned into a hope for a love that maybe could replace what we lost.”
As a result of his relationship with Hallie, Hunter said he lost clients and business, and had to step down from the board of directors of World Food Program U.S.
“I made a lot of decisions that I probably shouldn’t have made,” Hunter said. “There was a lot more compassion and understanding from the people that knew me. But it was a horrible time, too.”
Hunter noted that the relationship with Hallie “didn’t work.” He went on to tie the knot with South African film producer Melissa Cohen in May 2019. They welcomed a son named Beau in 2020.
Through it all, Hunter said he’s remained close to his dad, who usually “calls me right before he goes to bed, just to tell me he loves me.”
“We talk at least every night. By the way, not only does he talk to me every night, he calls every one of my daughters and he talks to each of them every day. He talks to me and I know that he talks to my sister,” Hunter said of his daughters — Naomi, 27, Finnegan, 21, and Maisy, 20 — and his sister, Ashley, 39.
Getting the daily phone calls from his dad, Hunter said, is nothing new.
“He’s always done that. I mean, always. He talks to each one of us,” he said. “But I’ll tell you why… Because he, like me, knows what it’s like not to be able to pick up the phone and talk to your son.”
