Former President Joe Biden's prostate cancer has progressed and is causing him significant pain, his son Hunter said in a BBC interview broadcast Friday night.
"The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further," Hunter Biden told BBC Newsnight. "It's very painful. It's very debilitating in many respects."
He grew emotional discussing his father's condition. "It's really, really hard, and it's really sad to watch," he said. "I wish he would complain more, because it's not good."
Biden, 83, disclosed the diagnosis in May 2025, four months after leaving the White House. His personal office said at the time that the cancer carried a Gleason score of 9 and had already metastasized to the bone - an aggressive presentation - but added that it appeared hormone-sensitive, "which allows for effective management." He completed a course of radiation and hormone therapy that September.
Hunter's account cuts against that framing. The disease has now moved beyond bone, and the pain and debilitation he describes mark a clear decline from anything the family has said publicly since. Jill Biden told NBC News in June that her husband would live with cancer for the rest of his life.
Hunter insisted his father remains engaged. "He's still out there. He's still doing his thing," he said. "He so believes in this country." He described the former president as the center of the family, and as "the best father, the best husband, the best grandfather."
Biden was the oldest man ever to serve as president, and his age was a running concern across his four years in office. He and his White House advisers have faced sustained criticism over what they knew and disclosed about his condition - criticism that intensified after his debate performance against Donald Trump in June 2024 forced him out of the race weeks later.
Hunter said he watched that debate from California and was "shocked." "I knew something was wrong," he said.
In the same interview, he addressed the pardon his father issued in the final weeks of the presidency. He called it "not fair" and acknowledged it was not good for the country, while saying he remains grateful for it. "I am the most privileged person, as it relates to that, that there could possibly be," he said. "I was one of one, and I'm eternally grateful for it."
