Signs Hunter Biden And Melissa Cohen's Marriage May Not Last
Hunter Biden cannot stay out of the news. Whether it has to do with his past struggles with addiction, his business dealings with China and Ukraine, stolen laptops, or his sordid love encounters, both his professional and personal life have drawn plenty of scrutiny.
One of the topics folks like talking about most is the first son's romantic life. There's his bitter divorce from Kathleen Buhle (with whom he shares three daughters), his secret love child with a stripper, his relationship with his brother's widow – and that's just the beginning. As of 2019, though, Biden has been married to South African documentary filmmaker Melissa Cohen. Despite a courtship that only lasted a few days, Biden told ABC their whirlwind marriage works for them. "I instantly fell in love with her," he gushed. "And then I've fallen in love with her more every day." Indeed, both of their families approved and the couple welcomed their first child (Biden's fifth), a son named Beau Biden Jr., in March 2020.
Since then, Hunter and his wife have built an extremely lavish life together and yet, there may be trouble in paradise. Here are all the signs that Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen's marriage may not last.
Hunter Biden initially had his sights set on Nicola Peltz
Nicola Peltz began dating Brooklyn Beckham in 2019, but it seems she had another, older suitor wanting to woo her at the same time. According to the New York Post, while Hunter Biden was on the outs with Hallie Biden in early 2019, he decided it was time to look for fresh love. In a series of text messages sent to his cousin, Caroline Biden (daughter of Joe Biden's brother, James), and made public by nonprofit research group Marco Polo USA, Hunter mused about potential new matches. These included Bella Thorne and Bella Hadid, but who he really honed in on was Nicola Peltz. After telling Caroline that his psychiatrist had suggested he date someone like Peltz – "He was telling me that I have to break free from Hallie's trap," he wrote – he asked his cousin to set them up because she apparently knew the actor. No matter that Peltz is 25 years younger than him. In fact, he loved the prospect of their age difference. "It's incredibly easy to impress a 24-year-old," he boasted, calling her "a rich pretty chick."
Elsewhere in their exchange, Hunter mused, "I need a girlfriend with money of her own and ambition that will be a loyal friend," adding he was looking for someone "kind and sexy but loyal and a good friend." Caroline was all for it and suggested Hunter befriend Peltz's parents first in order to get to their daughter. She also called Hallie evil and accused her of never having loved Hunter. Ouch.
Hunter Biden broke up with Hallie just days before meeting Melissa Cohen
Hunter Biden was caught daydreaming about potential new girlfriends in January 2019, but it seems he and Hallie Biden didn't actually break up until the end of that April. Days later, the man who had been looking for a rebound before his relationship even ended, began dating Melissa Cohen. There was no grieving period and the timeline made it seem like a mere fling, but the couple shocked the world by tying the knot on May 16, 2019.
It wasn't the first time Hunter rushed into an eyebrow-raising union. After all, he and Hallie made headlines as they went from siblings-in-law (Hallie was married to Hunter's brother, Beau Biden, until his death in 2015) to partners in 2017. What's more, Hunter started seeing Hallie while he was still married to his first wife, Kathleen Buhle. In fact, their divorce wasn't finalized until six weeks after his relationship with Hallie was made public. It seems that even with 24 years of marriage, Hunter didn't need a grieving period either.
Making his digression even worse was the fact that, as Buhle revealed in her 2022 memoir, "If We Break," it was their daughters who discovered his infidelity. "We found his phone," Finnegan Biden had to tell her mom, per People, as Naomi Biden explained, "There were text messages between them."
Melissa Cohen (kind of) stood him up
Hunter Biden had hit rock bottom when he met Melissa Cohen. His then-partner, Hallie Biden, had dropped him off at a rehab facility following a family intervention, but as he revealed in his 2021 memoir, "Beautiful Things," he decided to run away to Los Angeles instead. Once there, he started partying and hotel hopping and was constantly being kicked out because of the "parade of dealers and their hangers-on" visiting his room. In fact, he had just been told to leave the A-list Petit Ermitage when he got to talking to a group of strangers. "I slipped away every twenty minutes to hit the crack pipe," he admitted, but even so, they didn't seem to notice anything was off. Instead, they insisted he meet their friend, Melissa Cohen. They gave Biden her number, then he moved to the Sunset Marquis and forgot all about it. "Sometime after midnight I noticed the number inked across my palm and texted someone named Melissa," he wrote. He suggested they grab a drink. Her response? "No thank you. I'm asleep."
However, her friends pushed her to go for it and she eventually texted Biden the next morning to meet for coffee. She never showed up, instead postponing the meeting repeatedly from 11am to 1pm, 4pm, and eventually 5pm. "She texted an apology for canceling so many times, then promised she would be there, for dinner now, at 5:15," Biden wrote. To his surprise, she finally showed up and a whirlwind ensued.
Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen knew each other six days before saying I do
Hunter Biden likes to move fast. As soon as he met Melissa Cohen, he blurted out, "I know this probably isn't a good way to start a first date, but I'm in love with you." As luck would have it, she reciprocated his feelings an hour later and shortly after that, he came clean about his addiction. Cohen didn't flinch. "You're finished with that," she told him confidently, and he believed her. "I saw something in her eyes the moment I looked into them: everything was going to be okay," he wrote in his memoir.
The day after their date, Cohen took full control. She got rid of his drugs, confiscated his car keys, wallet, and computer, and made sure to delete every contact from his phone that didn't have the last name Biden. When dealers came knocking, she told them to never come back and when he was "whining and crying and scheming" during his withdrawal, she didn't budge. "She was merciless," Biden wrote. He slept for three days and on the fourth, he casually brought up the idea of marriage. The day after that, he got a "Shalom" tattoo to match hers, and proposed. While Cohen accepted, she said they should wait. That didn't last long. "When we woke up the next morning, seven days after we'd met, she turned to me again and said softly, 'You know what? Let's do it,'" Biden revealed, adding, "The decision never felt rash or harebrained or reckless." They said "I do" that same day.
Inside Melissa Cohen's friendly relationship with her ex
Just like Hunter Biden, Melissa Cohen had just gotten out of a serious relationship when they met. In fact, Page Six learned that she had been living with her ex, Malibu real estate developer Rob Mendez, until April 2019 and they had still been spending time together that May. Speaking with the outlet, Mendez called their two-year union "the best I've ever had," but assured their split was amicable – and finite. "Marriage and kids were in her future, but for me they just aren't," he explained. However, it seems her heart wasn't totally healed when she met Biden. As the first son revealed in his memoir, Cohen had just gotten back from visiting her brother who'd "consoled her over the breakup of that relationship" and that's the reason why she kept postponing their date.
In the book, Biden also shared additional details about Cohen's past, calling her "[an] activist proficient in five languages, ranging from Italian to Hebrew, and an aspiring documentary filmmaker who had spent time living with and filming indigenous African tribes." As a toddler, she spent a year in a children's home before being adopted by a family in Johannesburg. She eventually traveled to Los Angeles, California to visit friends on a gap year after the University of Johannesburg with plans to continue on to India. Instead, she fell in love and married businessman Jason Lavender in 2011, but they divorced in 2014.
Hunter and Melissa's families were kept in the dark about their wedding
Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen's wedding was such a whirlwind that there was no time to include their families in the big day. In fact, some members didn't even know the ceremony was happening. As Biden told The New Yorker, he only called his dad after the nuptials, although POTUS was all for it and shared a special message with his new daughter-in-law. "He was on speaker and he said to her, 'Thank you for giving my son the courage to love again,'" Biden told the mag. "And he said to me, 'Honey, I knew that when you found love again that I'd get you back.'" Similarly, it seems he may not have told his daughters either, as they were spotted attending an event in Washington, D.C. while their dad said "I do," per Page Six. Even so, Hunter and Cohen were adamant in an ABC interview that all three girls – Naomi, Finnegan, and Maisy Biden – approved of Cohen and had a good relationship with her.
As for Cohen's family, they also sent their well-wishes, although they had never met the groom. Her dad, Lee Cohen, told Page Six, "I've only spoken to Hunter briefly" while her brother, Garyn Cohen, told the mag he was "looking forward to meeting and getting to know my new brother in law(hopefully soon)!!"
The federal investigation into Hunter Biden tested their union
Hunter Biden has been the subject of numerous investigations, including the House Oversight Committee and House Judiciary Committee's look into his (questionable) business practices. During her first-ever interview in 2019, Melissa Cohen was actually asked how she felt about her husband being investigated for potentially shady dealings in Ukraine and China and she was defiant. When ABC wondered if she'd be open to an investigation, she clapped back, "Sure. Why not?" She also boasted, "I think it would probably be a waste of taxpayer's money."
However, according to sources, that support began to waver as the probe into Biden's finances dragged on. In July 2022, a source told Page Six that the couple "are frustrated because they are in lockdown" and are unable to go about their daily lives. According to the insider, they were instructed to stay far away from the public eye and had the Secret Service move in next door to constantly keep an eye on Biden. "She thought she was marrying a prince from a great American family and she'd live a charmed life with him, but the reality is he's a train wreck and life with him is very hard behind closed doors," they alleged.
Tensions surely weren't helped when Biden was slapped with an additional criminal investigation over gun and tax charges in 2023, spearheaded by the Justice Department.
A closer look at Hunter Biden's shady relationship past
Hunter Biden has a scandalous relationship history, to say the least. In addition to cheating on his first wife, starting a relationship with his brother's widow, and getting married after just six days of dating, Biden has courted plenty of other controversy in the romance department. In 2019, for example, a paternity test proved that, despite his denials, he had fathered Navy Joan Roberts with Lunden Alexis Roberts in 2018. Sources told Page Six they met when Roberts was working as a stripper at a Washington, D.C. club Hunter liked to visit while dating Hallie Biden.
In addition to being a regular at gentlemen's clubs, it seems the first son may also have used the pro-affair dating site Ashley Madison. Even if, following the 2015 leak of users' data, Biden told ABC that the account linked to his email address was not his. "I am certain that the account in question is not mine," he argued. But while he may have tried to deny that, there was no denying the bizarre sex tape he filmed with a sex worker in 2019. In it, he could be heard telling the naked woman that Russian drug dealers had stolen a laptop from him during a bender in Las Vegas. "They have videos of me doing crazy f***ing sex f***ing, you know," he revealed, per Daily Mail.
Are Hunter and Melissa actually two peas in a pod?
It may sound like there's a lot going against Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen's marriage, but in reality, they may actually be two peas in a pod. Despite all of the drama surrounding her husband and the fact that she barely knew him when they married, Cohen has stood by him from the start. In a 2019 interview with ABC, she mused, "I have an inclination that I'm gonna be in the honeymoon phase for a very long time." What's more, she challenged the media narrative, noting, "Things have not been easy externally, but internally things have been amazing." Perhaps one reason she wasn't fazed by the investigations into Biden's business past was that she had soon become a part of the alleged schemes. As the House Oversight Committee's investigation discovered in 2023, per New York The Sun, she was just one of several Biden family members to receive payments via his shell companies for jobs she wasn't qualified to do.
Finally, it sounds like their personalities are fully in sync, too. In August 2023, Daily Mail learned that the couple and their son had moved out of their luxury Venice Beach, California rental while owing $80,000 in rent. What's more, a source alleged "Melissa was rude and entitled" and accused the pair of trashing the place. "They left the house in terrible condition," the source said. "They also left the place dirty."