Hunter Biden told the BBC that Joe Biden's stage four prostate cancer has metastasized into his bones and beyond, a grim update that raises fresh questions about how long the former president's condition went undetected.
The 83-year-old former president, diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer in May 2025, less than four months after leaving the White House, is now dealing with a disease that has spread well beyond its origin. His son described a father who refuses to complain even as his body deteriorates, and a family watching the toll mount day by day.
Hunter Biden sat for an interview with BBC Newsnight and offered the most candid family account yet of what stage four cancer looks like behind closed doors. The picture he painted was blunt.
"The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further. It's very painful, and it's very debilitating in many respects."
He added that watching his father suffer is "really sad" and said the hardest part is Biden's refusal to voice how much pain he is in. "The only thing that I say about my dad, about his health right now, is I wish he would complain more," Hunter told the BBC, "because it's not good."
Biden received a Gleason score of 9, a scale used to grade prostate cancer aggressiveness, where 10 is the most severe. Medical experts cited by Fox News suggested that a score that high means Biden likely had the cancer throughout his presidency, which began in January 2021. That timeline puts the White House medical unit's failure to catch the disease in a stark light.
Jill Biden has previously addressed that failure directly, saying the White House medical team did not detect the cancer during Biden's time in office, and admitting she could not say whether he would have been able to finish a second term.
The former first lady, 74, has made several public appearances in recent weeks discussing her husband's condition. On The Today Show, she was direct about the prognosis.
"I think Joe will live with cancer till the rest of his life."
She expanded on the daily reality during an appearance on Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, referencing the Biden family's long history with the disease, including the death of their eldest son, Beau Biden, from brain cancer in 2015.
"Anybody who's gone through this cancer journey and I've been through it many times with members of my family, of course with Beau, it's constant. It's daily. And I think it's challenging."
On The View, Jill Biden offered another window into Biden's decline. "He keeps his schedule, but he's slowed down," she said. "Stage 4 cancer is, and he's 83, so, I think the mix of everything and the medications that he's taken has made life a little more difficult these days." That admission tracks with what she confirmed separately about the cancer being a permanent condition.
Biden's own team has tried to strike a more measured tone. A statement from his office described the cancer as "a more aggressive form of the disease" but noted that "it appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management." Five months after the May 2025 diagnosis, Biden began undergoing radiation therapy.
Despite the severity of the diagnosis, Biden has continued making public appearances, though they have drawn scrutiny. He delivered a keynote at a Maryland Democratic Party gala, where observers noted he appeared unsteady. He also attended the opening of Barack Obama's presidential library, the Washington Examiner reported.
Last month, Biden issued a rare personal health update via video, telling supporters he had been "spending a lot of time with my family" and was "dealing with a cancer diagnosis, been getting treatment, and it's going really well." In the same video, he announced a forthcoming memoir about his presidency titled "Promise Me, America," planned for release after the midterm elections, AP News reported.
Hunter Biden, for his part, framed his father's continued engagement as proof of character rather than stubbornness. "He's still out there. He's still doing his thing," Hunter told the BBC. "He so believes in this country."
But the gap between Biden's upbeat video, "it's going really well", and his son's description of a man in constant pain whose cancer has spread to his bones and beyond is difficult to square. One version is a reassurance. The other is a family member describing what he actually sees.
Prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9 does not develop overnight. The grading system measures how abnormal cancer cells look under a microscope, with higher scores indicating faster-growing, more dangerous tumors. A score of 9 puts Biden's cancer near the top of the scale.
If medical experts are correct that Biden likely carried this cancer throughout his presidency, the question is unavoidable: how did the White House medical unit, tasked with monitoring the health of the commander-in-chief, miss it? Biden experienced urinary symptoms that preceded the diagnosis. Doctors eventually found a prostate nodule that was later confirmed as cancer. But that discovery came only after he had already left office.
Jill Biden herself has acknowledged the failure. The fact that a sitting president could carry an aggressive, metastatic cancer for years without detection is not just a medical curiosity. It is a governance question. The American public was assured repeatedly during Biden's presidency that he was fit for the demands of the office, even as his cognitive sharpness became a subject of national debate and ultimately contributed to his decision not to seek reelection.
Now his family describes a man whose body is failing him. Hunter Biden called his father "the centre of our family" and praised him as "the best father, the best husband, the best grandfather." Those are the words of a son watching a parent suffer. They are also a reminder that the public was kept at arm's length from the full picture of Biden's health for years.
Hunter also acknowledged during the BBC interview that his father's decision to pardon him was damaging, both to the country and to Biden's legacy, Breitbart reported. That rare concession from a son who has been at the center of his own legal and personal controversies added an unusual layer of candor to the interview.
Biden's public appearances at Democratic events have shown a former president still willing to engage politically, but the physical reality behind those appearances grows harder to ignore with each new family disclosure.
The Biden family's history with cancer runs deep. Beau Biden, Joe's eldest son, died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46. That loss shaped much of Biden's political identity in his later career and was a central emotional thread in his 2020 presidential campaign. Jill Biden referenced Beau directly in her comments to Kelly Ripa, describing the family's cancer experience as "constant."
For Hunter Biden, watching his father fight the same category of disease that took his brother adds a personal weight that came through in the BBC interview. "Cancer is really hard," he said, a simple statement that carried the full burden of a family that has buried one member to the disease and now watches another endure it.
The American public deserves honest answers about the health of its leaders, before they leave office, not after. The Biden cancer saga is a case study in what happens when transparency takes a back seat to political convenience, and the people who pay the price are the voters who trusted what they were told.
