Former President Joe Biden’s battle with advanced prostate cancer has taken a painful and deeply debilitating turn, according to an emotional new account from his son, Hunter Biden.

Speaking to the BBC, Hunter revealed that the 83-year-old former president’s cancer has metastasized beyond his prostate and into his bones, leaving him in significant pain even as he continues to make public appearances and work on a new memoir.

“The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further,” Hunter said. “It’s very painful and it’s very debilitating in many respects.”

The stark disclosure offered one of the most personal glimpses yet into Biden’s condition since his office announced in May 2025 that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage-four prostate cancer.

For Hunter, watching his father endure the disease without openly expressing the extent of his suffering has been especially difficult.

“It’s really sad to watch,” he said. “The only thing that I’d say about my dad, about his health right now, is I wish he would complain more, because it’s not good.”

Despite the severity of his illness, Biden has not completely withdrawn from public life.

He appeared alongside Maryland Democrats at their “Fight Back and Win” gala near Baltimore in late June. Earlier that month, he attended the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, demonstrating that he remains determined to participate in political and civic life even as his treatment continues.

“He’s still out there,” Hunter said. “He’s still doing his thing. He so believes in this country.”

That determination has long been central to Biden’s public identity. Throughout decades marked by profound personal loss—including the deaths of his first wife Neilia, infant daughter Naomi and adult son Beau—he repeatedly returned to public service.

Now, however, his family is confronting a medical struggle that cannot be overcome through willpower alone.

Prostate cancer can often be treated successfully when detected before it spreads. Once it metastasizes to the bones or other parts of the body, it is generally considered advanced and requires long-term treatment intended to control the disease, reduce symptoms and preserve quality of life.

Biden’s office previously said that he had begun radiation therapy and hormone treatment. Former first lady Jill Biden later explained that her husband would likely have to live with cancer for the remainder of his life and would require specialized medication.

The diagnosis followed a period of urinary symptoms that ultimately led doctors to discover a nodule on Biden’s prostate.

Jill Biden has since revealed that warning signs may have appeared while the couple was still living in the White House. In an interview with Kelly Ripa, she recalled that her husband sometimes got out of bed to use the bathroom as many as seven times each night.

She said she raised the issue with White House physicians and believed it had been addressed. But after Biden left office in January 2025 and the problem continued, she urged him to seek further medical attention.

“When it continued when we got out of the White House, I said, ‘Joe, we’ve got to go up to Jeff in Philly—something’s wrong,’” she recalled.

There is no public evidence that earlier testing would necessarily have prevented the cancer from progressing, and the precise timeline of the disease remains known only to Biden and his medical team. Still, Jill Biden’s account adds a painful dimension to the family’s experience: the realization that symptoms had persisted before the diagnosis was finally made.

The former president is reportedly continuing work on a memoir titled “Promise Me, America,” which is expected to be released after the 2026 midterm elections.

The project’s title echoes Biden’s 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” which chronicled Beau Biden’s battle with brain cancer and the request his dying son made that Joe Biden remain engaged in public life.

Nearly a decade later, the family’s roles have changed. Biden is now the parent living with a grave illness, while his surviving son speaks publicly about the anguish of watching him suffer.

Hunter’s words did not present his father as defeated. Instead, they revealed the tension between Biden’s instinct to keep moving and the physical reality of a disease that has become increasingly painful.

That contrast—between the public figure still attending events and the private patient enduring debilitating symptoms—has made the latest update particularly poignant.

For Americans who watched Biden serve in national politics for more than half a century, Hunter’s disclosure strips away the familiar trappings of office. Behind the speeches, motorcades and political debates is an elderly father facing a serious disease while his family struggles with the helplessness that accompanies it.

Biden may still be working, writing and appearing in public. But Hunter’s heartbreaking account makes clear that beyond the cameras, the former president is enduring a far more difficult fight.