Last month, Hunter Biden reappeared from the wilderness. For the better part of a decade, trapped in a whirlwind of nepotism accusations, crack addiction, sex workers, federal gun and tax convictions, and an abandoned laptop with a narrative so convoluted that it necessitated its own 7,800-word Wikipedia page, the younger Biden son attempted to stay as quiet as someone with his surname and flair for drama could hope to be. But then came an apparent change of heart.
After he announced almost seven years of sobriety in an X post on May 23, someone accused him of owning the small bag of cocaine that was found in the White House in July 2023. Biden’s response—a chiding “I would never have forgotten my drugs”—signified a newfound embrace of his public persona. Emboldened, perhaps, by the three-hour viral interview he gave to YouTuber Andrew Callaghan last year, where he revealed that he used to make his own crack cocaine, Biden replaced his previous timidity with a full-bore acknowledgment of the mess he used to be. As he continued to post like this, with equal parts humor and candor (at one point, he described himself as “26 felonies, 6 bankruptcies and an Epstein bromance” behind Donald Trump), he managed to win over a new legion of fans on both sides of the divide. But a few funny tweets were never going to be enough. Hunter Biden is plainly a man of great appetite, and so before long he felt compelled to go far bigger. Thus, with the words “I’m Hunter Biden. You’ve never actually heard from me,” he started a Substack.
