Media & Celebrity: Hunter Biden's Accidental Week of Self-Sabotage
He sat for two of the most unusual interviews in recent memory — with Candace Owens, and then with Soft White Underbelly. He answered questions politely. That's about the most charitable thing anyone can say about how it went.
If you've been scrolling YouTube this week and noticed the same face appearing in two very different thumbnails, you're not imagining things. Hunter Biden — son of former president Joe Biden, convicted felon, recovering addict, and now something of a strange media fixture — sat for not one but two lengthy interviews in the same week. One was with Candace Owens, who until recently spent years publicly mocking him. The other was with Soft White Underbelly, a YouTube channel run by a man named Mark Laita, who has built a large and devoted following by interviewing people in difficult circumstances with a style best described as unfiltered. If you're not familiar with either name, Owens was a close associate of the late Charlie Kirk and built her brand in conservative media circles. Laita's ethics have been questioned by more than a few people over the years, though his contact list is remarkable.
The Owens interview, released on May 21st, ran nearly two hours. To her credit — or perhaps to the credit of whoever talked her into this —
Owens opened by promising not to push Hunter to say anything damaging about his father. She then proceeded to apologize to him for years of public attacks, calling it something she genuinely regretted. Hunter received this graciously.
The two bonded over faith, floated the idea of a trip to the Vatican together, and discussed, among other things, the bag of cocaine that was found in the White House in 2023.
Hunter said plainly that it was not his — pointing out, with some logic, that if it had been, he wouldn't have left it in a cubby on the way to the
Situation Room. He also acknowledged his long history with addiction in frank terms, which he has been doing publicly for some time now.
What we did learn that qualifies as genuinely new involves some candid Biden family grievances.
Hunter was sharply critical of Democratic Party figures he held responsible for pushing his father out of the 2024 race, describing the effort as a betrayal. He named names. He was emotional at points. He also, somewhat bafflingly,
called Owens, "probably the most effective communicator I've ever heard..." a sentence certain to haunt him in ways he has not yet to fully anticipate. Owens, for her part, used portions of the interview to raise doubts about the
Trump assassination attempts, characterizing them with a skepticism that Hunter appeared to echo rather than push back on.
That was not his finest moment.
The Soft White Underbelly interview covered similar territory —
addiction, family, the general weight of being Hunter Biden in the current American atmosphere — in a format that Laita's audience will recognize immediately. Long pauses. Quiet questions. A setting designed to lower defenses.
Hunter answered honestly, sat quietly, and somehow still managed to make the week feel like a series of decisions he probably shouldn't have made. It's hard to put your finger on exactly why both interviews leave you feeling vaguely sorry for him rather than informed by him,
but they do. The man is clearly carrying a great deal.
Both interviewers, whatever their intentions, were more interested in their own positioning than in what he might actually have to say. He deserved better questions. He got what he got. Somewhere in all of it, there are a few new facts about the Biden family worth knowing,
delivered quietly,
without fanfare, to audiences that were mostly there for the spectacle.
