Jill Biden Believes Son Hunter's Addiction Struggles Were 'Exacerbated' by Brother Beau's Death: 'What Did I Do Wrong?'

Jill Biden believes the death of Beau Biden only complicated Hunter Biden's years-long addiction battle, saying the loss "exacerbated" his struggles.

During a conversation with Kelly Ripa on the Tuesday, August 4, episode of her "Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa" podcast, the former first lady, 75, reflected on the family's grief and how difficult it was to understand Hunter's struggles with substance abuse.

"I for sure think it did exacerbate things," Jill confessed. "Addiction affects so many people, and it was really hard, I think, for me personally, to understand addiction, to understand it was an illness, because I kept feeling like, 'My God, we gave him everything.'"

Beau died at 46 in 2015 from an aggressive form of brain cancer. Though Hunter's issues with addiction began in his youth, his drug abuse heavily intensified following the loss of his older sibling.

"We gave him a good education. He couldn’t be more loved. He has a great family. We live in a great house. What more could we have given him?" Jill said, questioning Hunter's upbringing. "And so you tend to look at yourself and think, ‘What did I do wrong? How could I have done this better?’ And once you’re going through rehab after rehab and you’re not getting answers, I think it's really hard."

The former first lady praised Hunter, 56, for "overcoming his addiction" and using his recovery journey to help other people and their families understand that it's a disease.

"Because it’s really hard to understand when you’re going through it. But now he’s doing—he’s helping people in recovery. He’s been in recovery, I think I forget, it’s eight to 10 years now. He’s remarried. He has a beautiful little boy who he named Beau, who’s six years old now," she gushed. "He turned his life around, but it wasn’t easy, and it was years and years."

Hunter celebrated seven years of sobriety in June, calling it the "proudest" thing he's ever done in his life.

"7 years sober today," Hunter wrote via X on June 1. "Thank you to everyone who has walked this road with me."

One month later, Biden spoke candidly about the height of his drug addiction in an interview with Candace Owens.

"I’ve done horrible things in my addiction in terms of what I did in terms of my relationships and decisions that I made,” Hunter explained during the conversation. "More than anything is just removing myself from being present for the people that love me. What happened to me, and I really mean this, that the exposure, not piecemeal, but the total exposure, my digital footprint stolen from me … every text message, every picture, all of the things you’d be ashamed of became front-page news."