Duane “Dog” Chapman is shooting down criticism that he moved on too quickly from late wife Beth as he plans his wedding with fiancée Francie Frane. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight about his love story with the next Mrs. Chapman, Dog admitted he was “dying of a broken heart” and “haunted” by the death of of his longtime bounty hunting partner, who passed away in June 2019 after a battle of cancer, but credits the spirit of his late wife in helping him find Frane.
The Colorado rancher, also grieving the recent death of her spouse from cancer, met Dog when he reached out to her late husband for work, and the two bonded over their mutual grief. “We’re both still grieving. We’re never going to leave Bob and Beth behind [or] forget about them. They’ll always be a part of us,” Frane explained. “We thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives with them and that’s not what happened and we were dealt a really hard hand. 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?”
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She understands the fans who have a difficult time accepting their relationship, as Dog and Beth “built a legacy” with their many fans. “So, I do understand the, ‘How could you do this so quickly?’ We didn’t expect this either,” Frane explained. “My son thought I was going to run off and be a missionary in Africa just not to deal with life without Bob anymore. Neither one of us were expecting what happened, but God brought us together and how it fell into place was a miracle.”
Dog added he knew “right away this was love” when he met Frane, but that his new love has helped him quit smoking, lose 30 lbs and get his blood pressure under control following his health scare in the wake of Beth’s death. “We understood the pain that the other one was feeling and [in] those tough days and moments, we helped each other stand up,” she chimed in. “We could cry with each other and talk about what we were feeling. We were able to walk alongside each other through the pain and heartbreak and it brought us together in this amazing way.”
