Hunter Biden Says His Father's Prostate Cancer Has Spread Into His Bones

Hunter Biden said his father's prostate cancer has spread into his bones, offering the most detailed public account yet of a diagnosis the former president disclosed 15 months ago.

"The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further," Hunter Biden said in an interview with BBC News published late Friday. "It's very painful and it's very debilitating in many respects."

Joe Biden, 83, announced in May 2025 that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. His office said at the time that the cancer carried a Gleason score of 9 — Grade Group 5, the most severe classification on the scale pathologists use to rate how abnormal prostate tumor cells look under a microscope — and that it had already spread to the bone. A Gleason 9 tumor is considered high risk and fast growing, though prostate cancer that has reached the bone is often treatable for years with hormone therapy and radiation rather than curable.

Biden underwent surgery to remove a skin cancer lesion in September 2025 and completed a course of radiation therapy for the prostate cancer in October 2025. Neither Biden's office nor his medical team has issued a public update on his treatment since then, and the family has not released a formal statement responding to his son's remarks.

Hunter Biden described his father as unwilling to dwell on the illness. "He's still doing his thing. He so believes in this country," he said, adding that he wished the former president would say more about what he is going through. "I wish he would complain more, because it's not good." He called the experience of watching the decline "really sad."

The diagnosis has been a politically charged subject since it was announced. Former First Lady Jill Biden has called the news "shocking" and said the cancer was not detected while her husband was in the White House — a point that fueled months of argument among Republicans and some Democrats over whether the aggressive tumor could have gone unnoticed through a president's annual physicals. Prostate specialists have noted that routine PSA screening is not universally recommended for men over 70, and that guidelines leave the decision to individual doctors and patients, which is why a high-grade tumor can go undetected in an older patient who has stopped being screened.

Biden left office in January 2025 after abandoning his reelection campaign in July 2024, and has kept a limited public schedule since, appearing at a handful of Democratic events and delivering paid speeches. He has continued to speak publicly on democracy and foreign policy, and allies say he has stayed engaged with former aides by phone.

Hunter Biden, who was pardoned by his father in December 2024 for federal gun and tax convictions, has given a series of unusually blunt interviews over the past two years about his family, his addiction and his father's decision to run for a second term. Friday's interview was recorded in the United States and released by the BBC as part of a longer sit-down covering the 2024 campaign and its aftermath.