Duane “Dog” Chapman is defending his proposal to Moon Angell on The Dr. Oz Show as completely genuine amid rumors that he had planned the romantic gesture in order to get ratings on his exclusive interview. The Dog the Bounty Hunter star opened up to Entertainment Tonight in a new interview, claiming that while he and late wife Beth Chapman’s assistant are still just friends, his proposal came from a place deep within.
“I am very lonesome,” Chapman said, explaining he was first drawn to Angell because of her connection to his departed wife. “And she talked about Beth constantly, ‘Remember what Beth used to tell us,’ and of course I would light right up when she’d say that. I was infatuated with a dream.”
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Chapman added that the genuine shock on Dr. Oz’s face proves the proposal was not a planned stunt.
“I swear on my mama and on Beth that [the Dr. Oz proposal] was not rehearsed,” he said. “And you saw Dr. Oz was even like, ‘Oh my god.’ I knew I was gonna do it way before I done it, and I said, ‘This will stop these rumors.’”
Would he have been interested in a relationship with Angell if she had said yes?
“Yes, I am going to be honest with you, brother. Yeah, I think I would have because it was more accessible,” he admitted, saying things would have been difficult, as Angell had previously told him, “‘No one will ever love you like Beth did. You better stop looking for that because there is no woman alive that will ever love you like that.’”
“When you lose a spouse, man or woman, you are looking for that again,” he continued. “So you look for that and for someone to tell you that, it kind of stopped me dead in my tracks. I’m like, wow, so she’s kind of cold-blooded. She knows how to stop me and that’s kind of a direct point.”
That being said, despite Angell turning down his proposal, the two are still close. “She still works for me, and takes care of the finances,” he says, adding, “I kind of embarrassed her a little bit and I shouldn’t have.”
Photo credit: Bennett Raglin , Getty