The couple met through mutual friends at the Sunset Marquis hotel in 2019. Hunter has described the interaction as love at first sight, recalling the moment in his memoir, Beautiful Things. On May 17, the pair tied the knot in a secret wedding on the roof of Melissa’s L.A. apartment. They exchanged “the simplest gold wedding bands he could find,” and got matching tattoos soon after marrying. The wedding came about a month after a report that Hunter had split from Hallie Biden, the widow of his late brother Beau Biden. Hunter made headlines in 2017 when his family confirmed he had split with wife Kathleen and was seeing his former sister-in-law.
This pardon was controversial. Joe Biden said his son had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” Critics argued the pardon raised serious ethical and legal questions, especially given the scale and timing. Weiss’s report later pushed back on Joe Biden’s framing — Weiss argued that the investigation was not politically biased. In March 2025, Donald Trump announced that Hunter Biden (and his sister Ashley) would no longer receive Secret Service protection.
