Ark. Woman Raising Hunter Biden's Daughter Says Media Got Her Story Wrong: 'It's Not Political for Me' (Exclusive)

Lunden Roberts' new memoir brings readers in on her intimate friendship with Hunter, and the pain of being abandoned mid-pregnancy. "I'll always care about him," she now tells PEOPLE. "I was able to let that hate go"

Lunden Roberts knows that people might be reluctant to believe her side of the story. "It's a 'he said, she said,' " she admits, but it's also "the greatest thing that I can give my daughter."

For years, Americans have made assumptions about the little-known mother of Hunter Biden's 5-year-old daughter, Navy Roberts, relying on half-informed details to characterize her in a number of denigrating ways: as a greedy one-night stand, or a fame-chasing stripper, or a lying MAGA operative.

In her new memoir, Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden, she says she was just a woman in love.

"I've gone through the craziest things being said about me to the point where it's worth telling my story, getting it out there, and people can either take it or leave it," Roberts, 33, tells PEOPLE ahead of the book's release on Tuesday, Aug. 20. "It's up to them, and I'm okay with it either way."

"At the end of the day, my daughter will have it to hold and read one day, and I know that she'll know me, she'll know the person that I am and that I was, and she'll take it," she adds.

Related: Ark. Woman Tells Court That Hunter Biden Fathered Her Baby and Testing Proves It, Despite His Denial

Roberts was in Washington, D.C., pursuing an advanced degree in crime scene investigation when she met Biden, now 54, at a party. It was the fall of 2016 and he was in the throes of his crack cocaine addiction. "He was in a very, very dark place," she recalls. "I saw him during that time and I empathized with him and I loved him."

Her book details the sometimes-sexual friendship they shared, which involved Biden spoiling Roberts and her friends with lavish things. She says she became embedded in his day-to-day life, joining his payroll as an assistant, mediating his relationship issues with sister-in-law Hallie Biden, and spending time at Joe and Jill Biden's temporary Delaware home while they were out of town.

Related: Hunter Biden Talks Past Romance with Brother's Widow Hallie: 'It Came Out of a Real Overwhelming Grief'

Somewhere along the way, Roberts says she unknowingly fell in love with Biden, and in January 2018 — around the time she was starting to recognize her feelings — she learned that she was pregnant.

Though Biden expressed support when he heard the news, Roberts says he quickly grew distant and eventually stopped responding to her. Lacking his support, she moved back to her hometown in Arkansas to be with family and have his child.

Related: Joe Biden's Son Hunter Is Ignoring a Baby He Fathered in Arkansas, Paternity Suit Claims

"You can see throughout the book that I come back to Arkansas thinking that I'm going to keep this secret and not tell anyone who the child's father is — I want to protect him," she tells PEOPLE.

But after she had Navy, her perspective changed. "I realized he's not the one I should be protecting, it's her."

In May 2019, one month after Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign, Roberts quietly filed a lawsuit against the younger Biden, seeking to establish paternity and earn child support after he disappeared from her life.

The court filing was spotted by a local news outlet, and the legal proceedings that followed became a national spectacle. Though Biden initially denied knowing or having sex with Roberts, DNA testing proved that he was Navy's father.

"I just wanted Hunter to take accountability, and I just wanted Hunter to accept a child that he fathered and he knew he fathered," she says. "I didn't want the toxic litigation, I didn't want my child being thrown in the middle of this."

Related: Judge Finds Hunter Biden Did Have a Secret Baby in 2018: Why His Child Support Case Won't Go Away

Experiencing debilitating anxiety from the whirlwind of attention, Roberts asked her attorney to handle media requests on her behalf. "I've always been a really private person," she explains, "and then my life was just thrown into the public eye."

But even as she kept a low profile, she became a lightning rod for criticism in the political world. Liberals accused her of trying to take down Donald Trump's opponents, citing the timing of her lawsuit and her attorney's right-wing views. Conservatives shamed Roberts' former job as a stripper, then later took her side to argue that she and Navy were victims of the Biden family's elitism.

Roberts, a moderate Democrat who doesn't closely follow politics, felt frustrated watching others draw their own conclusions. "It's not political for me, it's personal," she says. "I'm not a MAGA supporter, I'm not a big conservative."

Though her court battle with Biden sparked prolonged pain for both of their families, it also forced a dialogue that she'd waited years to have.

"Everything made a full circle when I was able to sit there and talk to [Biden], eye to eye and face to face, and look him in the eyes and tell him, 'I've hated you for so long and I've been so mad at you,' " she says. "And that day I was able to let that hate go, because that's something that I had held onto."

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The legal saga came to an end with a settlement in June 2023. Biden agreed to supply Navy with some of his original paintings as part of her child support compensation — and more importantly, he told Roberts that he was ready to meet his daughter over Zoom and start forming a relationship.

"Seeing her and him on Zoom calls and being able to see that look on her face and when she's able to actually talk to him ... it's worth giving all the grace in the world," she says. "I'll always care about him, he's my child's father. I want what's best for him."

Navy, now nearly 6, still has a lot of catching up to do with her father's side of the family. The president and first lady acknowledged Navy as their granddaughter in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE last summer, but have not yet reached out to the Robertses directly.

"It's been a year, and there's not been that contact," Roberts says, adding that it stings. "I think that she would've been a blessing to them, and still could be."

Related: President Biden Speaks Out on Hunter’s Daughter, 4, with Ark. Woman: ‘Jill and I Only Want What’s Best’ (Exclusive)

Though Navy's father was keeping up with Zoom calls even as his criminal cases began to pick up steam, he paused their communication after learning about Roberts' new book.

"People are like, 'Well, aren't you furious?' Yes. It sucks," Roberts says, but she is holding out hope that better days are ahead. And in the meantime, she's ready for the world to finally hear her perspective.

"Media likes to find anything that they can and then just run with it and make their own narrative," Roberts tells PEOPLE. "They thought they had this great story, but I think mine's a lot better."

Out of the Shadows, from Skyhorse Publishing, reaches bookstores on Aug. 20 and is now available for online preorder wherever books are sold.

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