Bonnie Chapman is celebrating her 21st birthday honoring her late mother Beth Chapman. Two days after she rang in her big day, the Dog the Bounty Hunter daughter shared a throwback photo of herself as a newborn, cradled in mom Beth’s arms. Chapman captioned the snapshot with a simple message: “21 years later, thank you for all the birthday wishes on Monday! I had a wonderful day.”
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The photo of Beth 21 years prior, rocking uncharacteristically dark hair while holding her little one, had Dog’s Most Wanted fans in their feelings.
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“God I miss Beth so much,” one person commented. “I’m glad you enjoyed your birthday Bonnie.”
“Bonnie, what a beautiful memory. I loved your mom,” another added, with a third chiming in, “Happy Birthday! Your mom is with you always.”
Since Beth passed away in June following a battle with cancer, Chapman has been open about how devastated her family has been.
“It’s really hard I’m not gonna lie,” she told SurvivorNet in August. “To see new moments of [my mom] that I haven’t seen… it brings back a flood of emotion. It makes me feel like she’s still here, but then I’m brought back to reality, realizing it’s something that happened in the past, not right now.”
She added, “It’s very vulnerable … It’s unlike anything you could really experience. It’s having the whole world have eyes on you in an intimate way and to have the whole world know exactly what you’re going through.”
The holidays this year have been especially sad, she noted on Instagram earlier this week: “I haven’t been posting lately, the holidays have been kinda sad without my mom,” she wrote. “I don’t want to get into it, just know I’m struggling a bit and that’s why I haven’t been posting. Please be patient with me during these next month. I barely can be excited about turning 21, my birthday is my favorite holiday. I love being surrounded by people I love, this year there will just be one person gone but it feels like there’s this massive gaping hole where she was.”
Photo credit: Mike Coppola/FilmMagic, Getty
