Hunter Biden to publish memoir detailing drug addiction

Hunter Biden, a frequent target of conservative ire in the United States, also writes about the death of his brother Beau in "Beautiful Things," due out on April 6.

The memoir recalls "Hunter's descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety," Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, said in a statement.

Biden, who turned 51 on Thursday, was discharged from the Navy Reserve in 2014 after a positive test for cocaine.

In July 2019, he recalled to The New Yorker magazine how three years earlier someone put a gun to his head in Los Angeles after he asked a homeless man where he could buy crack.

President Biden has been unwavering in his support for his son.

During the final presidential debate, when Donald Trump mocked Hunter's cocaine use, the former vice president simply said: "I'm proud of him. I'm proud of my son."

Hunter became a regular focus of Trump's attacks ahead of the November 3 vote for his business dealings in Ukraine and China.

Hunter, now an artist based in LA, has admitted to displaying "poor judgment" in some of his business dealings, but denied any wrongdoing.

Hunter and Beau survived a car crash that killed their mother and sister in December 1972, just weeks after their father was first elected a US senator from Delaware.

Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46, less than two years after he was diagnosed.