‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Star Leland Chapman Wishes Wife Jamie Pilar Happy Birthday With ‘Blurry’ Throwback

Dog the Bounty Hunter star Leland Chapman has more to celebrate this week than just his father Duane “Dog” Chapman recently nabbing a new show. Thursday marked his wife Jamie Pilar Chapman‘s birthday, so Chapman shared a blurry throwback photo from the beginning of their relationship. Chapman and Jamie married in 2016.

“I wanna wish my wife [Jamie] a happy birthday,” Chapman wrote on Instagram. “Since this photo was taken in the beginning (it’s a little blurry, but so were we), I’ve been blessed to call you my wife my friend, and my partner. Here’s to you Mrs.Chapman, Thank you beautiful Happy Birthday.” Jamie thanked her husband for the message, adding “il mio amore,” or “my love” in Italian. On Friday, Jamie shared a photo with her friends as they headed out to celebrate her special day. “Birthday weekend begins! Let the good times roll” she wrote.

Earlier this month, Duane announced plans to star in Dog Unleashed, a new series available exclusively on a new streaming platform called Unleashed! on Jan. 1, 2021. Unlike the previous Dog the Bounty Hunter shows, this new one will not just focus on the Chapmans chasing down bail-skippers, but also criminals accused of rape, murder, and child molestation. It appears that Chapman took part in the show, as he was featured in a new photo his dad tweeted on Sept. 16. The new show will also include Duane’s fiance, Francie Frane. She joined him in Virginia, where Duane tracked down the first wanted criminal on the new show. Although Frane is not a bounty hunter, Chapman told Dr. Mehmet Oz she was a “natural” in the field.

“[She] and her two sons have hunted bow hunt, so they track, they look for things that the prey leaves behind. And so she’s kind of a natural,” Duane said of Frane. “She just fit right in. She started getting leads and writing them down, so there’s more than just tracking and hunting.” Frane is great at “the investigation behind the investigation,” the Dog’s Most Wanted star said, adding that Frane is “really, really good” at finding clues.

Duane and Frane got engaged in May, less than a year after Duane’s wife Beth Chapman died from cancer in June 2019. The new couple connected over their mutual loss of a spouse, as Frane’s husband Bob also died from cancer months before she met Duane. The two are “both still grieving,” Frane told Entertainment Tonight and said their deceased spouses will always be with them. “Both of us had a decision to make – are we going to rise up from the ashes and get back to life and what Beth and Bob would have wanted from us?” Frane said.