Hunter Biden has unquestionably made some spectacularly unsavory choices in his life, some of which he’s documented in his newly released sex- and drug-soaked memoir “Beautiful Things,” but he’s got pretty sophisticated (and rather pricey) taste in rental homes.
At the end of 2019, the legally embattled businessman and attorney — he says he’s cooperating with a federal investigation for his business dealings in China and believes he will be cleared of any wrongdoing — was paying in the neighborhood of $12,000 per month for a pristinely updated midcentury home in the Hollywood Hills. Since then, it’s come to light via a YouTube video recently posted by Irish journalists and documentary filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, he’s moved on to bigger and more expensive digs, a $17,500-per-month architectural across town, along the quaint canals in Venice.
In the video, McAleer, approaches the residence’s secured entry gates and rings the buzzer seeking an on-the-fly interview with Biden, who has over the last few weeks made the rounds promoting his book in a variety of outlets including NPR, CBS and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” When thwarted by a polite and very firm secret service agent, McAleer shifts gears, jumps in a kayak and paddles over to the house where he shouts out questions through a bullhorn.
A figure briefly appears in shadow in the round window that prominently punctuates the side of the strikingly snow-white three-story home but, unsurprisingly, the 51-year-old presidential son did not come down for a chat. McAleer, who bills himself on LinkedIn as “one of the world’s leading crowdfunders,” ends the 3.5-minute video, also unsurprisingly, with a plea for donations to fund a documentary about Biden called “My Son Hunter” that he and McElhinney would like to pursue.