The Biggest Scandals To Ever Hit Dog The Bounty Hunter

Few shows have so quickly become part of the American cultural consciousness as "Dog the Bounty Hunter," which gained a huge following after it first premiered as a pilot on A&E back in 2003. The show followed the adventures of Duane "Dog" Chapman and his team of bounty hunters — made up mainly of members of his own family — as they attempted to hunt down people who had violated their bail conditions.

The show is known for its moments of high drama, but it also revealed a softer side to Dog than his muscle-bound enforcer look would suggest. Often, episodes of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" would see the show's star appealing to those he had pursued and attempting to convince them to turn away from crime. Dog is a Christian, and invokes the name of God frequently to suggest how criminals might find a way to turn their lives around.

But the fact is that Dog the Bounty Hunter has lived a tangled life and faced a few scandals along the way. In fact, before he decided to make a career as a bail bondsman and a bounty hunter, his life was checkered with prison time, including one serious crime which has followed him throughout his life. More recently, revelations about his private life have also affected his reputation. Here are the details.

Society generally has little time for convicted murderers, which makes the rise of Dog the Bounty Hunter all the more improbable. In 1976, Duane "Dog" Chapman was in Pampa, Texas, where he was found to have been involved in the murder of a man named Jerry Oliver, a drug dealer who was shot dead by one of Chapman's friends during a cannabis deal, with Dog waiting in a car outside.

"I should not have been there, that's that," Dog has said, according to The Guardian. However, being in the car that day led to him being charged with murder and eventually sentenced to five years in prison. He served 18 months, a time he spent "growing a conscience," he told International Business News in 2015. Prison life can be challenging, and it was during this difficult time that Dog embraced religion, an experience that established his world view. "God turned my life around in prison and I believe that no matter who you are of where you're at, God can change your life," he has said (per The Kansas City Star).

Duane "Dog" Chapman has done little to hide the crime that changed the course of his life. On his show, he makes special mention of the importance of redemption, and outlines how his life was turned around by his Christian faith behind bars, while in interviews he is open about the difficult experiences he went through after first being released from prison in Texas.

He told The New York Times in 2020: "'They said, 'You can't even get a driver's license, you'll have nothing.' I looked in the mirror to shave and heard my dad saying, 'Burn your birth certificate, I wish you were never born.' I said: 'I'm going to change and be the best at whatever I do in the world.'"

But Dog's murder conviction has had more of an impact on his career than he has let on. Dog famously never carries a deadly weapon, which is framed on "Dog the Bounty Hunter" as a personal choice. But in fact, he is banned from having guns due to his conviction, which has also affected his having a bounty hunting license in certain states and prevented him from traveling to the U.K. for reality TV work. More recently, he has sought to have his conviction quashed, which would allow him to fulfil his dream of running for sheriff in Texas.

It wasn't just in his early life that Duane "Dog" Chapman found himself behind bars. Dog's prison spell for murder in 1976 represented a period of profound change in his life. It has been claimed that Dog saw a future for himself after tackling a fellow inmate who was attempting to flee the prison, after which Dog became a bail bondsman and bounty hunter. He went on to become incredibly successful, and claims to have captured a record number of fugitives over the course of his long bounty hunting career.

But though he was now chasing down criminals, Dog's bounty hunting hasn't always seen him on the right side of the law. He ran into trouble in the early 2000s, when in pursuit of a high-profile fugitive named Andrew Luster, the heir to the Max Factor make-up brand who was on the run after being charged with multiple sex offenses. Dog and his sons, who, as fans of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" know, are central to Dog's business, pursued Luster to Mexico, where they beat the FBI in uncovering his location and detained him so that he could be put on trial in the U.S. However, bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, and Dog and his team found themselves arrested for kidnapping. The charge hung over Dog for several years before it was finally dismissed in 2007, but by then the publicity arising from the Luster case had propelled Dog to reality TV stardom.

Ever since Duane "Dog" Chapman first found fame with "Dog the Bounty Hunter" on A&E, both his family and his love interests have shared the spotlight with him. The most famous of the Chapman family besides Dog is undoubtedly Beth Chapman, his wife who starred alongside Dog from the show's inception and whose bold personality and unrestrained potty mouth gave the show a great deal of character.

Sadly, Beth died in 2019 at the age of 51, of complications of throat cancer, having chosen to cease treatment for the disease. "I want to die in my boots," she reportedly said (per The New York Times). Beth's illness and death was captured in another of Dog's shows, "Dog's Most Wanted," with Beth reportedly insisting every aspect of her story be filmed.

Dog had met Beth in 1986 when he posted her bond after she was found to have stolen a lemon from a store. They were married in 2006, but this was far from Dog's first legal union. He had been married four times previously — though some sources suggest only three — including one marriage which happened just days after their meeting. Months after Beth's death, Dog announced his engagement to Francie Frane, a widow who went on to be his sixth wife in 2021.

Unsurprisingly, Duane "Dog" Chapman's many relationships have also produced a veritable clan of offspring over the years. In total, Dog has fathered or adopted 13 children with six different women since 1972, and is now the patriarch of a family that includes a bevy of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Two of Dog's children have sadly predeceased him. 

Though news that Dog was getting remarried after the tragic death of Beth Chapman was generally greeted warmly by friends and fans, it was notable that two close family members were not invited to the wedding. One of these was Dog's daughter Bonnie, who was 22 years old at the time. Bonnie has claimed that she didn't receive an invite because of her support for Black Lives Matter, a movement that she says Dog is opposed to. In response, Dog has described Bonnie as "brainwashed," though Bonnie told Entertainment Tonight: "As far as the idea that I'm being brainwashed, this is the dumbest thing my father has ever said ... He has begun to believe crazy conspiracy theories. The only credibility my dad has to speak about brainwashing is perhaps as a victim." Dog's stepdaughter, Cecily, the daughter of his late wife Beth from a previous marriage, has made similar accusations.

Another of Dog's daughters, Lyssa, published a book in which she claimed her childhood spent between Dog and Beth, and Dog's ex-wife Lyssa Rae Brittain, was abusive and disrupted by her parents' substance abuse and alcoholism. However, Dog and Lyssa have since reconciled.

Lyssa Chapman's book about her childhood wasn't the only source of lurid details about Duane "Dog" Chapman's private life. Bonnie Chapman has remained highly critical of her famous father for several years, and routinely makes public statements that lift the lid on what appears to be a strained home life for the reality TV star.

One of the biggest bombshells that Bonnie has dropped over the years has been to claim that Dog is a consistent adulterer, whose 13-year marriage to the beloved Beth Chapman was undermined by his frequent liaisons with other women. Bonnie claims that she was aware of her father's affairs throughout her childhood. Moreover, she accuses her father of continuing to have affairs even when Beth was in the hospital, and that he hooked up with one of Beth's friends while she was on her deathbed. Dog has denied the accusations, and claimed that his daughters have been indoctrinated by former business partners looking to hurt his reputation.

Yet more accusations against Duane "Dog" Chapman have emerged from within his own family, not least from his daughter Bonnie Chapman, who has continued to paint her father as a hateful and bigoted dinosaur whose views about the world are at odds with the spirit of understanding and tolerance that underpins his hit TV shows.

Bonnie Chapman has said that one of the reasons she and Dog no longer see eye-to-eye is because he has become increasingly allied with evangelical Christianity, which has colored his world view when it comes to homosexuality and much more besides. "If my dad and his new wife want to travel to right-wing churches attacking gay people and advancing QAnon theories, he can certainly do that, but I'm going to stand by the memory and legacy of my mom, Beth Chapman. Her memory, and the values she stood for, are worth fighting to advance," Bonnie wrote in a 2021 Facebook post, while also claiming that he is guilty of using homophobic slurs. Dog has denied the claims, pointing out that he has a gay daughter and gay men on staff. 

Most of these accusations came on the eve of Dog's 2021 wedding. But since then, there have been more revelations, including of a rant in 2023 in which he attacked transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who promoted Bud Light beer, saying: "Rebuke Satan out of him and just give him a couple black eyes. ... I mean that. If I ever see him, I'm dropping him" (via Advocate). He has also suggested LGBTQ+ people are estranged from God.

But perhaps the most damaging scandal in Duane "Dog" Chapman's career came in 2007, when his fame was at its zenith thanks to the success of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" on A&E, which by then had run for multiple seasons. That year, Dog's son, Tucker Chapman, leaked to the National Enquirer audio of a telephone conversation between him and his father that included Dog making multiple racial slurs about Tucker's Black girlfriend. News of the recording sparked widespread outrage, leading A&E to shelve the upcoming season of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" indefinitely amid the backlash.

More recently, Dog's 2021 show "Dog Unleashed" was cancelled before being aired due to what executives described as a breach of contract (per Taste of Country). However, Bonnie Chapman has waded into the furor — she worked at the time for Unleashed Entertainment, the production company behind the show — and claims that Dog had again been fired for using racial and homophobic slurs.

In response, Dog spoke to Kevin Frazier of "Entertainment Tonight," telling his interviewer, "I have never been a racist. I'm 33 and a half percent Apache," and claiming that he "thought [he] had a pass in the Black tribe to use it" due to the prevalence of such slurs in prison. "My pass expired for using it, but no one told me that. To say a racist name doesn't qualify to make you a racist," he added, a point which Frazier, who is Black, disagreed with. Dog described his previous use of racial slurs as an "Achilles heel." "Would I die for a gay man or a Black man? I'd lay down my life," he claimed in the same interview.

Duane "Dog" Chapman's long career as a bounty hunter and TV star seems from the outside to have been highly lucrative. As fans of the show know, hunting fugitives can lead to huge financial rewards, while starring in a series of hit shows has undoubtedly brought the Chapman family millions of dollars over the years.

But the true state of Dog's finances isn't quite so rosy. In fact, one of the biggest financial stresses has its roots in his 2003 arrest in Mexico, an incident in which the future star apparently amassed a great deal of legal fees that, nearly two decades later, he was still required to pay. According to a report published by the gossip website TMZ, the A&E star had gotten into a dispute with his former legal team that led to multiple cases between the parties, and which ultimately led to Dog having to swallow a judgment in 2013 that stipulated he owed his former lawyer more than $880,000 plus interest. As of 2021, the total stood at just under $1 million, and remained unpaid.

His financial situation has become even more precarious as a result of tax liens against him totalling around $1.6 million, which, with his original reality TV show off the air and new spin-offs failing to find an audience like they once did, means trouble for the man whose net worth is said to be around $6 million in total.

We have already outlined Duane "Dog" Chapman's extensive family tree, but in 2023 it grew even bigger, with the shock revelation that Dog had a son that his fans — and seemingly Dog himself — had not previously known about.

Writing on Instagram on the anniversary of Beth Chapman's death, Dog said: "For the last four years, this day was a terrible reminder of one of the greatest losses of my life. But God redeemed this day when I discovered my son Jon, who I just met recently, was born on this day. So now instead of sorrow, this day has a new meaning. This is my son Jon and his wife Jodi."

The news was a big surprise, and widely reported across the internet. However, Dog remained tight-lipped on the details of his and Jon's relationship, and how they had finally come to reconnect, with the bounty hunter teasing that their story would be told in his upcoming book, "Nine Lives and Counting," simply adding: "For anyone who has suffered a terrible loss please know God restores and redeems. Happy birthday son, love you both."

With Duane "Dog" Chapman's recent money issues very much in the public eye, cynical viewers might be forgiven for thinking that the timing of his announcement of his long lost son Jon was nothing more than a tasteless marketing gimmick. However, the bounty hunter has received more pointed criticism recently, with one high-profile case bringing him a great deal of notoriety.

That was the 2021 case of Brian Laundrie, the American man who disappeared on a road trip after the death of his fiancée Gabby Petito, sparking a huge manhunt. Before long, Dog decided to stage a manhunt of his own, drafting a team to help find Laundrie, whom Dog assured the public was likely still alive and in hiding.

Dog's attempt to center himself in the middle of one of the biggest news stories of the year was met with skepticism, with many outlets reporting that Dog himself had no license to detain criminals as a result of his murder conviction, a point his team disputed. More tellingly, however, was his stepdaughter, Cecily Chapman, once again going public with her criticism of her father, claiming that Dog's hunt for Laundrie was nothing more than a publicity stunt. Indeed, reports claimed that Dog had pitched a show about the hunt for Laundrie to A&E, the network that first made him famous, but that his pitch was rejected.