Who Is Hunter Biden? New Details On His Split From His Dead Brother's Widow
Hunter Biden raised eyebrows when he started dating his brother's widow. Now they have split up.
Getty Hunter Biden, son of Presidential candidate Joe Biden, and Hallie Biden, the widow of the Hunter’s brother the late Beau Biden, have broken up. Are you following that? The pair started dating in 2017, just as Hunter was finalizing his divorce from his wife Kathleen. Beau had passed away two years before in 2015. While the pair raised eyebrows, the Biden family stood by the couple and supported their relationship.
Now, Hunter and Hallie confirm that they are no longer seeing one another, but no one seems to know why they broke up. Who is Hunter Biden? Keep reading to learn all about the former Vice President’s son.
1. Beau’s death
Beau Biden was an Iraq war veteran who served as Attorney General of the state of Delaware. His early life was marked by grief when he and his brother Hunter survived a car accident that took the lives of their mother and sister. His father, then-Senator Joe Biden, remarried in 1977 and his second wife Dr. Jill Biden joined their family. Beau suffered a stroke in 2010 but recovered. In 2013, he was diagnosed with brain cancer, which was successfully treated by surgery and he was able to continue working throughout his treatments. He became well known as a campaign surrogate for his father and running mate Barack Obama during their presidential campaigns. In early 2015, his cancer returned and he was treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center near DC before passing away in May of that year. At the time, CNN reported that Vice President Biden said: “Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known.”
2. Family tragedy
Beau’s death was a dark time for the Biden family. It is widely assumed that the grief over losing his son was a key factor in the Vice President’s decision not to enter the 2016 campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. At the announcement about his decision, President Obama tasked Biden with overseeing an increase in funding for cancer research and Joe Biden went on to do charitable work around cancer as a public health threat. Hunter Biden, Beau’s younger brother, fell into a troubler period of drug use and his marriage began to crumble around that time.
3. Love after loss
In 2017, Hunter and Hallie announced that they were romantically involved. Page Six broke the news at the time and Hunter confirmed by saying: “Hallie and I are incredibly lucky to have found the love and support we have for each other in such a difficult time, and that’s been obvious to the people who love us most. We’ve been so lucky to have family and friends who have supported us every step of the way.”
Hunter was in the process of finalizing his divorce from his wife of 23 years at the time but even that didn’t dispel the support the new couple got from Joe and Jill Biden. People reports that at the time, the former Vice President said “We are all lucky that Hunter and Hallie found each other as they were putting their lives together again after such sadness. They have mine and Jill’s full and complete support and we are happy for them.”
A close family friend named Lea Carpenter told People in 2017: “No two brothers were as close as Hunter and Beau. And anyone moved to judgment now has no knowledge of the grace and strength with which Hunter and Hallie have navigated the last four years.”
The pair started dating in 2017.
4. Messy divorce
While the 2017 announcement was surprising to many, Hunter and his wife Kathleen separated in 2015, not long after Beau passed away. They finalized their divorce in 2017, but not without a lot of drama along the way. According to court findings from the divorce, Kathleen accused Hunter of profligate spending, racking up massive debts, drinking, drug use and repeated infidelity. This all comes on the heels of his discharge from the Navy Reserve in 2014 after he tested positive for cocaine. At the time, Delaware Online reported that Kathleen had filed a motion asking Hunter to stop spending shared assets on “his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations), while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills.” In addition, she alleged that he had accrued debts that were “shocking and overwhelming” including maxed out credit card debt, double mortgages on two properties, more than $313,000 in tax debt and three bounced checks to their housekeeper. Hunter never disputed the claims about his spending or other activities.
5. Moving on again
Now Page Six reports that Hunter and Hallie have moved on from one another. This news comes just days after Joe Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 race for President. No one from the Biden camp is commenting on the Hunter and Hallie split. So far, sources are only willing to tell Page Six that it’s a private matter.
Hunter and Hallie are no longer an item.
When asked if his personal life would affect his father's candidacy. Hunter tod Vanity Fair "I believe that my father has become an ongoing symbol of what it means to keep on fighting for what is good in oneself, in others and in our country. I can tell you that I wouldn’t be alive today, if my dad hadn’t kept fighting for me, too. … Our journey as a family—yes, including my own difficulties with my marriage—have made us unbreakable."
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.