Yahoo News Sean Penn Explains How His Friendship With 'Insightful' Hunter Biden Originated
Sean Penn had huge praise for his embattled buddy, Hunter Biden, in a new interview with The New York Times.
During a wide-ranging conversation with reporter Maureen Dowd, the actor showed off a painting by Hunter Biden which was on “prominent display” in his Malibu home.
In Dowd’s article, she described the piece, titled “The Map,” as an image of “the black outline of a head with colorful, detailed brushstrokes all around it.”
Penn said the painting, which was a personal gift from president Joe Biden’s son, was made while the attorney-turned-artist was trying “to put the pieces” of his life “back together” amid his struggles with drug and alcohol abuse.
Hunter Biden was recently convicted of three felonies related to lying about his drug use on a 2018 application to purchase a gun.
Elsewhere in the interview, Penn called his friend a “very, very insightful guy,” revealing that Hunter Biden had visited the “Milk” star’s home with wife Melissa Biden and their son, Beau, just the night prior.
Penn also told Dowd how he first met Hunter Biden at a 2022 event for the Kennedy Center Honors, with the pair reconnecting last fall at the suggestion of mutual friend, Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell of California.
Penn said before meeting Biden he had read an interview with him and “since the chips were rolling down, and I was really taken with him” he decided to share his admiration for the first son.
More recently, Penn was Hunter Biden’s personal guest at a star-packed Hollywood fundraiser for his father, President Biden.
The actor has been an ardent critic of Biden’s Republican rival, Donald Trump, for years now.
Speaking about the former president during his sit down with Dowd, Penn said, “He’s shameful as an art and as a way of life.”
