Beth Chapman: 5 Things To Know About Dog The Bounty Hunter’s Wife Who’s Battling Cancer
Shutterstock
Launch Gallery
She’s the better half of Dog The Bounty Hunter and she’s fighting for her life. Beth Chapman is battling stage II throat cancer, so get all the details about Dog’s remarkable better half.
In November 2018, Beth Chapman was given horrible news, as the 51-year-old wife of Duane “Dog The Bounty Hunter” Chapman, 66, learned that her throat cancer had returned. While this news is utterly heartbreaking, she remains strong – and she’s even “excited” to get back to work on Dog’s new show, Dog’s Most Wanted. Beth has said that this new cancer fight is just another chapter in her life and not the end of the story – but what is the story behind Dog’s better half?
1. She met Dog when she was just a teenager. Beth (born Alice Elizabeth Smith) first met Duane when in 1988, according to Country Living, when she was 19 years old (and he was 35.) She was working for a lawmaker at the time and was in a grocery store when she took a call from her boss. She walked out the store holding a lemon, and was arrested for “shoplifting.” However, she also had an unregistered and unlicensed gun in her pocket (which she had taken from her then-boyfriend after he got drunk.) On top of that, she had an arrest warrant out for unpaid parking tickets.
Beth’s father called in a favor to bail her out of jail, but she refused to go to Dog’s office to do paperwork – until he threatened to put her back behind bars. When she showed up, she automatically fell in love. “He came walking out there, and I said, ‘Oh yes, he will be mine.’ Let the stalking begin,” she told Rosie O’Donnell during her OWN show in 2011.
2. She broke records to win Dog’s heart. Dog was also taken by how gorgeous Beth looked when the first met. “I was never one of those older guys who went for the young girls. But damn….I know what you’re thinking. I’m an idiot, right?” he wrote in his memoir, You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide. But, he tried to avoid her since he was married at the time.
Beth would not be deterred. At age 29, she took the test to get a bail license in order to get Dog’s attention, and thus, she became the youngest person ever to get a bail license in Colorado until her stepdaughter, Lyssa beat her record. Beth, according to Dog, would take risky cases so she’d have an excuse to call Dog to track down those who skipped bail. He, in turn, would recruit her for bounties if he needed “a brain or a beautiful young girl to act as a decoy.”
3. She was married before Dog… Prior to marrying Dog, Beth walked down the aisle with Keith A. Barmore. The two divorced, but not before they welcomed a daughter, Cecily, 25 into the world in 1993. She has three more children: son Dominic Smith, 33, with an ex-boyfriend; and two with Dog – Garry Chapman, 18, and daughter Bonnie Joe, 20,
4. … and he’s Dog’s fifth wife. So, fifth time’s the charm? Dog has been down the aisle an impressive five times. He married La Fonda Sue Honeycutt in 1972 (divorced 1977), married Anne M. Tegnell in 1979 (divorced in 1982), married Lyssa Rae Brittain in 1982 (divorced in 1991), married Tawny Marie in 1992 (filed for divorced in 1994), made it official in 2002). Even though he’s known Beth for more than three decades, the two didn’t get married until 2006, 16 years after they started dating.)
5. Dog credits her for saving his life. By 1995, Dog was abusing substances as a way to cope with his personal problems. Eventually, Dog moved back to Denver to live near his sister. “One day, we were both standing in the alley behind the houses on bail bonds row. It was like a scene from a movie,” he wrote in his memoir. “I looked at her and she at me. By the time Beth got to the back of the alley, I was already by her side. I grabbed her and put the most passionate kiss on her.”
Shortly afterward, he and his kids moved into Beth’s house, but he was still abusing drugs. She wasn’t going to let that stand. By 1997, he had kicked the habit, thanks to Beth. “If Beth hadn’t saved me, I’m not sure I would have survived those years.” Now, it’s time for Dog to help Beth get better as she battles cancer for a second time.