It has been almost a year since President Joe Biden finally acknowledged the existence of his seventh grandchild, Navy Joan Roberts, in a brief statement to The Guardian newspaper. People Magazine. Maureen Dowd receives all the credit for her July 2023 column in the New York Times—”There are seven grandchildren, Mr. President”—but the Washington Free Beacon has been reporting on the scandal since November 2019, when a court-ordered paternity test confirmed that Hunter Biden was the father.
Now we finally hear “the story everyone has been asking about.” That’s how Navy Joan’s mother, Lunden Roberts, describes the content of her new memoir. Out of the Shadows: My Life in the Wild World of Hunter Biden. It’s certainly the most reliable account we’ll ever get of this sad and sordid saga, which means the author is neither a sleazy liberal journalist nor a degenerate, lying crack addict. She’s just a former high school basketball star from Arkansas with terrible taste in men and a seemingly limitless tolerance for toxic behavior.
Roberts is also the victim of a cold-blooded smear campaign that led her to consider suicide. That campaign was at least partially aided and abetted by the sitting President of the United States, a career politician who never missed an opportunity to praise himself for always putting family first. She doesn’t explicitly criticize her daughter’s grandfather in the book, but she didn’t stop her PR team from setting a release date during that Democratic National Convention, a few days before Biden’s keynote speech, and promising “revelations that could well affect the outcome of the 2024 election.” Well, so much for that. The media wouldn’t have minded much if Biden had still been the candidate anyway. Now they can ignore it forever.
Needless to say, Roberts’ version is dramatically at odds with what you’ve read in the media about strippers and one-night stands, including Hunter Biden’s best-selling memoir, Beautiful things (2021), in which he never mentions Roberts by name but describes her as “the Arkansas woman who had a baby in 2018,” one of dozens if not hundreds of women he slept with during his post-divorce “rampage” who were “hardly the dating type.” He claimed in the book and in Arkansas family court that he could not recall a single “encounter” with the mother of his child.
According to Roberts’ more credible, less crack-soaked account, it was a malicious and demonstrably false claim, almost certain to be grounds for a successful defamation suit. Almost as ridiculous as all the Democrats who insisted on television that Joe Biden was mentally fit and able to serve. It documents their months-long “relationship” – she was also on his payroll and had his health insurance – and their drug-fueled adventures together, which included hanging out with Hallie Biden, one of Hunter’s other mistresses and the widow of his brother Beau, at the 11,000-square-foot Virginia mansion that Joe and Jill rented “from a friend of the Obamas.”
There is not much meaningful self-reflection in From the shadowsand at times, Roberts herself seems to be in the grips of addiction, defenseless against Hunter’s so-called charm, desperate to be needed and to heal his broken soul. (Her next boyfriend was an MMA fighter and severe alcoholic who kept breaking into her house to call her a whore.) It’s as if she wrote an entire book about a codependent relationship without ever having Googled “codependency.” Roberts’ tone as she recounts her relationship with Hunter is one of whimsical nostalgia, like this: “LOL, remember when my boyfriend couldn’t stop smoking crack, isn’t that crazy?”
Still, Roberts and her daughter are the only real victims in this story. Hunter isn’t even the worst of the villains. It was Joe Biden, who insisted on running for president while his only son was in the grips of addiction, lucky to be alive, a wrecking ball who financed his hedonistic lifestyle by selling access to the family name. It was Joe Biden, who yelled at reporters for asking about the granddaughter he refused to acknowledge, and who did nothing to stop his son from denigrating the child’s mother as a money-grubbing stripper he didn’t even remember. It’s Joe Biden, the guy who loves all his grandchildren, who still hasn’t spoken to Navy Joan.
It was inappropriate at the time and a shame in hindsight, especially now that Roberts has told her side of the story in the book, which contains one of the craziest conception stories you will ever read.
It’s December 2017, less than a year after Joe Biden is no longer Barack Obama’s vice president. He’s considering whether or not to run for president for a third time. In the meantime, Hunter Biden has had some “meetings” in New York City for his job as an absurdly successful crack addict who deals with international corruption. He asks his quasi-girlfriend/personal assistant Lunden Roberts to accompany him. On the way to Union Station, they make a “pit stop” at one of Hunter’s favorite strip joints, Archibald’s, where everyone knows his name.
They board a train and find a seat near the bathroom so Hunter can snort cocaine. They get chatting to an old black lady who is on her way to Newark. It’s late and the woman doesn’t have a phone, so Hunter is kind enough to walk her off the train to a place where a relative is supposed to pick her up. He makes it back just in time before the train leaves, only to find that they aren’t in Newark. He orders the train to stop. “I’m on the board of Amtrak!” he screams. It doesn’t work. When they reach the next station, Hunter runs out into the night.
Lunden heads to the luxury Manhattan penthouse loft with her suitcases and Hunter’s backpack full of drugs. Hunter eventually makes it there, but loses his phone, wallet, and Beau Biden’s dog tags. It’s now morning, and he’s out conducting business in the city. Hours later, he calls Lunden, claiming he’s stuck in a meeting. It’s FaceTime, so she knows he’s at a strip club. Hunter returns to the hotel at midnight with two “friends,” including possibly the daughter of a shady foreign oligarch. They pull something out of the closet. A bit of flirting, then another round of “meetings” in the morning when Hunter tells Lunden it’s time to go. His business partner has been kidnapped by the CIA.
Lunden took a pregnancy test a few weeks later. The rest is history, just like the media’s interest in talking about Joe Biden, who selflessly gave up power for American democracy. The noble family man who loves his family. Grandpa Joe. “This baby is a Biden,” a Democratic lawyer who was friends with Roberts told her after she found out she was pregnant with Navy Joan. “The Bidens are known for loving their family and being so family-oriented. They can turn a scandal into something to be proud of. That’s what makes them who they are.” But is that it?
Alternatively, after Hunter’s legal team offered her $250,000 if she would drop her paternity suit and sign a nondisclosure agreement, Roberts told her own lawyer, “Eat shit, asshole.”
Out of the Shadows: My Life in the Wild World of Hunter Biden
by Lunden Roberts
Skyhorse, 312 pages, $32.99
