Hunter Biden went public about his history of drug addiction and other personal travails, telling the New Yorker that he sought to protect his father's campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
"Through weeks of conversations," New Yorker writer Adam Entous wrote, Hunter Biden, 49, "became increasingly open about his setbacks, aware that many of the stories that he told me would otherwise emerge, likely in a distorted form, in Breitbart or on 'Hannity.'"
Joe Biden, 76, the former two-term vice president, has faced increased scrutiny in recent weeks, including his past positions on school integration, his writing of the 1994 crime bill and his physical interactions with women.
In the New Yorker article, Hunter Biden said he began drinking in high school and that he became addicted to cigarettes and cocaine while at Georgetown University.
"Look, everybody faces pain," Hunter Biden told the New Yorker. "Everybody has trauma. There's addiction in every family.
"I was in that darkness," he confessed. "I was in that tunnel — it's a never-ending tunnel. You don’t get rid of it. You figure out how to deal with it."
Biden has rotated through at least five rehabilitation centers over the last 15 years, according to the report, including before and after his brother Beau died of cancer in 2015.
In addition, Hunter tested positive for cocaine use while in the Navy — he was discharged in 2014 — and Arizona state police found a crack pipe and cocaine residue inside a rental car he was driving two years later.
He did not face narcotics charges, according to the New Yorker, because no evidence was found that Biden had used the pipe.
The article also detailed Biden's failed business dealings, his acrimonious divorce and his relationship with Beau's widow, Hallie.
It also discussed how Joe Biden stood by his only surviving son, regardless of any possible personal or political fallout.