‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Duane Chapman Admits Struggles Without Beth: ‘Never Did I Think It’d Be This Bad’

Dog the Bounty Hunter star Duane “Dog” Chapman said he is still struggling after the death of his wife, Beth Chapman. Beth died in June at age 51, following a battle with cancer. She filmed episodes of Dog’s Most Wanted, which will debut on WGN America next week.

In a new interview with InTouch Weekly, Chapman, 66, said one of the biggest struggles he has faced is keeping his long hair in order.

“David’s trying to help, poor David. He can’t do it. He’s not a girl,” Chapman said of the person now doing his hair. “So do you know, it’s all crooked and s–.”

Chapman later said of Beth, “When she was with me, I would say, ‘Get in there right now cause someday maybe she won’t be here.

He told the outlet that whenever he would pick up tissues off the floor, he would remind himself, “Someday these Kleenexes won’t be here.”

“Now when I go in there and they’re not there I’m like ‘I told myself, so it’s okay. I told myself so,’” he said. “So I kind of prepared myself whether she prepared it or not to, you know, see what it could’ve been like.”

Even though Chapman understood that Beth’s time was limited, he was still not prepared for her death and how it changed him.

“Never did I think it’d be this bad,” he said.

Thankfully, Chapman’s children are “getting along very good” and the family has never been closer.

“[Beth] said, ‘I hope that if I die, it brings the family back,’” Chapman told InTouch. “‘Cause they’re a normal family. They gripe about, ‘They got paid more than me. You love them more than me.’”

In another recent interview with PEOPLE, Chapman said some of their children are understandably struggling with their mother’s death.

“Each one copes differently, there is a few that really barely making it,” Chapman told the magazine. “We don’t know what to do. We haven’t read, we weren’t prepared. I lost my mother first, and when my mom passed away, I’m like, ‘I wish dad would have died first, you know, ’cause I love my mommy.’ So I went to them and said, ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t die first and mom did.’”

Chapman said he explained to his children that he felt he should have gone before his wife.

Beth was thought to be cancer-free in late 2017, but the cancer returned in November 2018. Doctors gave her a terminal diagnosis after she was rushed to the hospital because she had trouble breathing. Before he called the ambulance, Beth asked Chapman to “please let me go,” he told Entertainment Tonight.

“And I didn’t even make a decision, I almost said, ‘I can’t.’ Before I could say, ‘All right,’ she couldn’t breathe and I called the ambulance,” Chapman recalled. “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.’”

WGN America will kick off a four-night Dog the Bounty Hunter marathon on Sept. 1. Dog’s Most Wanted will debut on Sept. 4 at 9 p.m. ET.