Hunter Biden told a podcast host he is exactly “48.6% gay,” turning his sexuality into a running joke weeks after admitting on a separate show that he once battled crack addiction.
Quick Take
- Hunter Biden joked on The Luke Beasley Show that he is “48.6% gay,” changing the number several times during the talk.
- The joke came weeks after Biden sat for a nearly two-hour interview with conservative podcaster Candace Owens.
- Biden also took aim at Senator Ted Cruz over the 2020 laptop scandal on another podcast.
- The remarks fit a wider trend of blunt, unscripted podcast talk from political figures and their families.
A Number That Kept Changing
Hunter Biden appeared on The Luke Beasley Show on August 16 and told host Luke Beasley he is “a little bit” gay. When Beasley asked if he leaned more or less than 50 percent, Biden answered, “Uh, 48.6”. He paused to ask if the moment was actually serious, then kept talking. The number kept shifting through the show, dropping to 47 percent before he settled back at 48.5 percent by the end.
Biden, 56, is married to Melissa Cohen and has spoken openly about his personal life on several recent podcast stops. The Luke Beasley Show episode treated the sexuality talk as lighthearted banter, not a formal announcement. Near the close of the show, Biden repeated the joke, saying he was “back up to 48.5 percent gay”. The line quickly spread across entertainment and social media outlets.
A History of Blunt Interviews
The gay-percentage joke followed a much heavier exchange months earlier. In May, Biden sat down with conservative commentator Candace Owens for a conversation that ran nearly two hours. During that interview, Biden bluntly said, “truth of matter is I was crackhead,” addressing his past drug addiction head-on. The wide-ranging talk also covered his legal troubles, including firearm and tax charges that led to a pardon from his father, former President Joe Biden.
Biden has also used podcasts to jab at political rivals. On the show “I’ve Had It,” he went after Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, calling part of the fallout from the 2020 laptop scandal a “really, really kinky weird thing”. The comment showed Biden’s continued willingness to revisit the laptop controversy that dominated headlines during his father’s presidency, using unscripted podcast settings to respond on his own terms.
Podcasts as the New Political Stage
Biden’s approach mirrors a broader shift in how political figures now communicate. Long-form podcasts let guests speak casually, without the tight editing of traditional news interviews. Legal scholars note that courts have repeatedly protected pundit and guest remarks made in this loose, conversational format, treating them as opinion or rhetorical exaggeration rather than provable fact when the context clearly signals joking.
candace owens is a ki why would she title her podcast episode with hunter biden “candace and hunter CRACK the internet” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
— river moon (@kissmeriver) September 2, 2026
That legal backdrop matters because Biden’s comments, on his sexuality and on Cruz, came in exactly this kind of setting: loose, unscripted back-and-forth rather than prepared statements. Whether listeners took the jokes literally or not, the exchanges show how casual podcast chatter now shapes public perception of political families as much as formal press statements once did.
Sources:
nypost.com, instyle.com, washingtonpost.com, radaronline.com, newsweek.com, media.cadc.uscourts.gov



