Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman ‘Trying to Man up’ Following Loss of Wife Beth

Dog the Bounty Hunter star Duane “Dog” Chapman has shown an emotional side of himself that fans have never seen before since his wife, Beth Chapman, died late last month. In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, the reality star who built a tough persona for television broke down while describing how hard it has been to “man up” since Beth’s death.

“[With any] new experience that you have, you don’t know how you’re doing because you’ve never experienced it,” Chapman told Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday. “I have a lot of people who depend on me. All my supervisors said, ‘Dog, it’s time to man up.’ So I’m trying to man up.”

Beth died on June 26 at age 51 in Hawaii, following a battle with throat cancer. She was diagnosed in 2017 and tried to prepare her husband for the worst.

“For two to three years, she knew this might happen. So she would say, ‘Who is going to sit next to you?’ And I said, ‘No one,’” Chapman told ET through tears. “‘Big Daddy, you better not let another girl take my place.’ I said, ‘I won’t.’”

Chapman said that rather than getting traditional therapy after she received the diagnosis, she decided to focus on bounty hunting.

“Even though she is not physically there, mentally and spiritually she is there,” Chapman said of filming new shows without her.

Although Beth helped Chapman prepare for any challenge he could face in life, living without her was not something he was ready to face.

“There is not another Beth. There’ll never be another Beth. There ain’t a girl built like another Beth,” he said.

Chapman said he told Beth he was “not going to let her die,” even in her final moments. Even when she told him to “let me go,” he could not.

“I didn’t even make a decision, I almost said, ‘I can’t,’” he said. “Before I could say, ‘Alright,’ she couldn’t breathe and I called the ambulance… But every day she talked as if she was not there. ‘Here’s what to do with this, here’s what to do with that. Don’t keep running your mouth. When they ask you a specific question, just answer that.’”

He continued, “So, prepared? No, you’re never, ever prepared. You can’t prepare… There is no way. I did not know that this was going to happen that day.”

Beth was declared cancer free in late 2017, as seen in the A&E special Dog and Beth: Fight of Their Lives. However, the cancer returned in late 2018, and the cancer spread to other parts of her body. She was put in a medically induced coma days before her death and never recovered.

The Chapman family gathered for a memorial in Waikiki, Hawaii on June 29 and will celebrate her life again during a memorial on Saturday at the Heritage Christian Center in Aurora, Colorado.

Before Beth’s death, Chapman and Beth filmed the first season of Dog’s Most Wanted, a new series following the couple tracking down criminals on most wanted lists across the country. The show will air on WGN America next year.