Yesterday it was revealed that Hunter Biden, the embattled son of President Biden, will release a memoir in April called “Beautiful Things.” But New York Post columnist Kyle Smith got an exclusive first look, thanks to a draft he found on a laptop Computer abandoned in the Champagne room at Ba-Da-Bing’s on Route 1 outside Wilmington, Del. Here, he shares with us an exclusive excerpt from Chapter 1:
Some of you are wondering why I called this memoir “Beautiful Things” instead of, say, “Ukrainian Business for Dummies,” or “Not the Good Son — the Other One.” Some joker even told me I should have called it “Ten Easy Ways to Secure Your Laptop” (No. 1: don’t go on a binge and forget you left it in a repair shop for a year.)
Ha, ha! Inside joke. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about, because Dad’s media team is also known as “the media.” They fixed it so only one news organization in the country mentioned my laptop. Those jerks at The Post should have known you don’t mess with the B Team. I mean, Team B. I didn’t mean to suggest the Obamas were the A Team and that we’re this pathetic pile of janky political leftovers, like when you go in the carpet store and there’s this dusty corner marked “Remnants.” Sure, the last First Lady is super-glamorous and hangs out with Beyoncé and went to Harvard Law School and all that but — did you know my stepmom is a doctor? Not the kind you can get a Vicodin prescription from, unfortunately. (I asked.)
I’m calling this book “Beautiful Things” because I’ve wised up. I’m no longer a 30-year old scoundrel, coke fiend and influence peddler. Now that I’m a 51-year-old scoundrel and influence peddler, I’ve learned to appreciate some of the finer things. Yes, smoking crack and knocking up strippers have their place in my heart, but these days beauty is something that’s become more important. Have you ever seen a 2.8-carat diamond that’s worth $80,000? Really sparkly. It’s a Beautiful Thing.
So is my friendship with the man who gave it to me, a Chinese tycoon named Ye Jianming. Only haters don’t get that friendship is a Beautiful Thing!
Ye ran an energy company. I don’t know that much about energy, but I know a lot about juice, if you know what I mean. My dad was about to launch his presidential campaign. This made me very popular with Chinese businessmen. “Yo, Ye!” I used to say. It was a bro thing we had, joking around and stuff. He’d say, “Yo, for-sale son!” His English wasn’t that great.
Say, whatever happened to my old buddy Ye? Google says Ye, “who had ties to the Chinese military and intelligence services, was the chairman of CEFC until he disappeared after being taken into custody by Chinese authorities in early 2018.” Well now. I definitely would never take a diamond the size of a baseball from a corrupt Chinese spy. In fact, now that I think about it, I didn’t know that guy AT ALL. [Stacey please redact before publication, thanks — H.]
Some people ask me: Hunter, having been dishonorably discharged from the military and not having any relevant experience, how did you land a high paying job on the board of a foreign company? Turns out I didn’t have to mention to those guys that Dad was vice president. They knew already! As the song goes, “I got a name, and I carry it with me like my daddy did.” [Stacey, insert disclaimer from Legal about how Dad definitely never knew about any of this stuff — H.] Getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ukrainian energy companies while Dad was veep and point man for Ukrainian policy: Now that’s what I call a Beautiful Thing.