Melissa Cohen

Melissa Batya Cohen Biden (born c. 1986) is a South African-American activist and documentary filmmaker. In 2019, she became the second wife of Hunter Biden, a son of U.S. President Joe Biden, and gave birth to their son in March 2020.

Melissa Cohen was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She lived in an orphanage and was three years old when adopted by Lee and Zoe Cohen, a South African Jewish couple with three sons. She was raised in the Jewish faith and attended a Jewish day school before studying interior design at Greenside Design Center College of Design in South Africa. She moved to Los Angeles when she was 21 years old to attend a horticulture course at the University of California, Los Angeles.

While in Los Angeles, she met American businessman Jason Lavender. They married in 2011 and separated in 2014. Cohen was an advocate for environmental and nature conservation groups.

After her divorce, Cohen launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary about tribal communities. The pitch was unsuccessful and was cancelled in October 2016. She co-owned Tribal Worlds LLC, a Los Angeles-based company from January 2018 to June 2021.

In 2019, she met Hunter Biden, a son of then-former U.S. Vice President and presidential candidate Joe Biden. She helped Hunter Biden get sober from his alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction. On May 16, 2019, six days after meeting, they married in a ceremony held at her apartment in Hollywood Hills. Neither's family were present at the ceremony, but the couple called Joe Biden afterwards, and he congratulated them. In 2019 she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Their son Beau was born in March 2020 in Los Angeles. She is also the stepmother to her husband's three daughters from his first marriage to Kathleen Buhle, one of whom is Naomi Biden.

She attended the Inauguration of Joe Biden in 2021.

She and her family live in Little Rock, Malibu, California.