MANHATTAN (CN) — Hunter Biden says Fox News violated New York's anti-revenge porn laws when it aired a miniseries that explored fictitious criminal charges against the president's son.
In a 15-page lawsuit filed Monday in Manhattan state court, Hunter Biden accused the right-wing network of creating “The Trial of Hunter Biden” miniseries to harass, alarm and humiliate him while tarnishing his reputation.
“Far from reporting on a newsworthy event, Fox sought to commercialize Mr. Biden’s personality through a form of treatment distinct from the dissemination of news or information,” Hunter Biden claims in the suit. “Indeed, the entire miniseries is fictionalized and based on a nonexistent criminal case.”
Fox Nation, the network's streaming service, described the October 2022 miniseries as an exploration of “how a possible Hunter Biden trial might look.” But the main character of the six-part series lambasted Fox for including two charges against him in the mock trial that he never actually faced: bribery and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
He claims the network profited from the show unjustly after improperly advertising it as a news series, rather than a fictional program for entertainment purposes only.
“The miniseries is fictionalized; it is not a news event. It was made for the purpose of trade and advertising, and merely exploits Mr. Biden’s name, image, and likeness for Fox’s commercial benefit,” Hunter Biden claims.
In addition to emotional distress and unjust enrichment claims, he also says Fox broke New York’s revenge porn laws by featuring intimate video footage and still images depicting him in the nude and engaged in sex acts.
When those same images were shared to X (formerly Twitter) by Chinese pro-Trump businessman Guo Wengui — who’s in the midst of his own trial on federal fraud charges — Twitter promptly determined they violated the platform's revenge porn policies and removed them, Hunter Biden noted.
“In publishing and disseminating these intimate images, Fox knew that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material which were intended to remain private and confidential, but which had been unlawfully procured and disseminated without Mr. Biden’s consent,” he claims in the lawsuit.
In a statement to Courthouse News, a spokesperson for Fox News called the lawsuit "politically motivated and devoid of merit."
“The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024," the spokesperson said. "The program was removed within days of the letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon. Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden’s own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court.”
After Hunter Biden's legal team threatened the network with a lawsuit in April, Fox pulled the program from streaming, saying it was reviewing the concerns and acted in the interim "out of an abundance of caution."
Despite that, Hunter Biden said Monday, clips and promotional reels from the miniseries are still live on Fox’s social media pages and that the show is still available for streaming on certain third-party platforms. “Clips of 'The Trial of Hunter Biden' containing the intimate images of Mr. Biden also remain accessible online and in the public domain,” he says in the suit.
Hunter Biden, the second son of President Joe Biden, stood trial for criminal charges earlier this year — but not the ones Fox wrote into its miniseries. In June, a 12-person Delaware jury convicted him of lying about his drug use on federal forms while he purchased a Colt Cobra .38 special revolver in 2018.
Representing Hunter Biden in Monday’s action against Fox is Tina Glandian, a partner at the California-based Geragos & Geragos, who also represented actor Jussie Smollett.
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