Hunter Biden admits addiction; Candace Owens joins

Hunter Biden sat down for a two-hour interview at Candace Owens’ Nashville studio, where he admitted, “I was a crackhead” and discussed how to make crack from cocaine, while Owens said she was “most interested in the addiction story.” The conversation quickly

Hunter Biden walked into Candace Owens’ Nashville home studio expecting to be judged—then, instead, he sat down and put his addiction into words.

In a new interview conducted with Owens, the right-wing influencer said she hadn’t even considered the possibility that he was anything other than “a crackhead.” “I just didn’t even consider: He’s a crackhead,” Owens recounted. “That’s actually a very relatable thing.”

Biden, for his part, did not soften the framing. “The truth of the matter is I was a crackhead,” he admitted. He later explained how to make crack from cocaine. Owens told him she was “most interested in the addiction story. ” and the two-hour conversation—sparked after podcaster Shawn Ryan connected the pair—quickly became a digital spectacle.

The interview, one of the year’s most surprising pairings, drew more than 1.1 million views in less than 24 hours, with a flood of YouTube comments praising Owens for what viewers described as her humanizing of addiction and for bringing “hope” to a polarized nation.

The tone of the exchange was markedly different from the way Owens has built her public brand for years. The source of the discomfort for many viewers is that Owens spent years calling Joe Biden’s son a crackhead on her popular podcast. before shifting to portray him as a dream guest once they were connected. In the interview itself. Biden also discussed addiction. suicide attempts and public humiliation. with a bluntness that bordered. for some listeners. on moving.

Owens did not interrupt him with gotcha questions or cheap shots, and there was a moment that carried real weight: she apologized to Biden for years of mockery. Owens said she felt “sh*tty” about reducing him to a caricature at his lowest moments.

That apology, however, does not resolve the larger question of what the interview actually represents. What stands out is not just the personal candor; it’s what Owens appears to be doing with it.

Biden used the interview to invoke language that has become familiar in his public orbit. He claimed that “the D.C. elite of the left” destroyed his father because the elder Biden “was never part of that club, he was never part of the Epstein class.”

Owens leaned into that framing. She was transfixed by Biden’s focus on addiction. but the conversation also ran through territory that critics see as a bridge between outrage politics and conspiracy thinking—turning a former president who spent decades at the center of Democratic power into an outsider cast as a victim of shadowy elites.

The interview also included Biden’s larger pushback against the idea that he was sidelined through ordinary political realities. The account in the interview treats the exit from the presidential race as something more sinister than public judgment; the claim is that shadowy elite power did the damage.

That narrative is then mirrored in Owens’ own history of amplifying conspiratorial content. For years. Owens has promoted conspiracies about global elites and has amplified antisemitic tropes so aggressively that the outlet that helped make her a star—Daily Wire—eventually severed ties with her. Her more recent fixation on linking the Israeli government to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. with whom she once worked at Turning Point USA. has expanded her audience.

The interview lands against an increasingly punishing backdrop for Owens. She is facing a landmark. multi-million-dollar defamation lawsuit in a Delaware court filed by French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron. The suit stems from an eight-part podcast series in which Owens dug into fringe web theories to claim that the French first lady was born male.

She is also facing additional legal pressure from Kirk’s former head of security after suggesting he was involved in Kirk’s assassination. Owens has separately accused Kirk’s widow, Erika, along with Turning Point USA, of using artificial intelligence to forge Kirk’s dying wishes.

Seen this way, the warmth Owens showed Biden reads less like a sudden conversion than like a calculated move: an attempt to collect new credibility through an alliance that feels unexpected, while much of what has powered her rise remains largely insulated from scrutiny.

In the conversation, Biden offered Owens praise for what he framed as her ability to communicate. Owens leaned into flattery as well. and the interview turned toward Kirk’s death—where Biden fed into Owens’ broader approach to the story. In their exchange, Biden said: “The level of disloyalty, or fear—I don’t know what it is . . . and the criticism of you for asking the questions for someone who is like a brother to you?. It’s like, ‘what the eff are you talking about?’ I listen to you and I go, ‘right on!’”.

That moment captures the emotional engine many critics argue now drives a cross-partisan media ecosystem built around conspiracy. alienation. and mutual distrust of institutions. Biden referred to an “Epstein class” and used it to recast his father’s political fate; Owens—described here as having spent years encouraging paranoia—appears to be using the new interview as part of the same larger machinery.

The question many viewers are left with is simple: whether the candor about addiction is enough to outweigh everything else around it—especially when the same platforming instincts. the same conspiratorial themes. and the same cycle of credibility-building are already tangled up with Owens’ legal troubles and her longer record of amplification.

Hunter Biden Candace Owens Joe Biden Shawn Ryan Nashville studio addiction story antisemitism defamation lawsuit Emmanuel Macron Brigitte Macron Charlie Kirk Turning Point USA artificial intelligence Erika Kirk Delaware court