Humbled “Dog” Ready For Return
By Andrew Pereira
Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman, the world’s most famous bounty hunter, will return to airwaves this summer nearly eight months after a racial rant forced A&E to pull the star’s reality television show from its lineup.
“We’re really confident that the time is right to bring him back,” said Dan Silbrman, the network’s vice president of publicity. A&E placed “Dog the Bounty Hunter” on hiatus in November after Tucker Chapman, one of the bounty hunter’s eleven children, sold a private phone call with his dad to the National Enquirer. During the conversation ‘Dog’ Chapman can be heard repeatedly using the N-word as he talks about his son’s relationship with an African-American woman.
“As far as the word that I said, it hurts people’s feelings,” Dog said during a press event at the Kahala Hotel Wednesday to announce the show’s return. “I am not famous for that,” he went on. “I’m famous for grabbing someone if they’re a felon, you know with blood in one eye and a tear in the other. “I’ll hunt you down and then call you brother - that’s the ‘Dog.’”
Reruns of the popular series will begin airing June 25. New episodes of season five and previously unseen episodes of season four are scheduled to start July 16. Silberman admits there’s a lot riding on the show’s continued success. “It’s one of our highest rated shows,” said the A&E executive. “It consistently delivers more than two million viewers per premiere episode.”
In the months since his controversial comments were made public and his show taken of the air ‘Dog’ Chapman has repeatedly delivered mea culpas on cable news networks and within the African-American community. The former convict turned bounty hunter says it wasn’t really a process of resolving a conflict but rather letting the public know what kind of man he is.
“There wasn’t ever any reconciliation because you know I’ve always been a brother,” Chapman said. “There’s this connection now. I’m no longer superman, I’m human being Dog Chapman.”
Chapman has been counseled by civil rights leaders about his use of the N-word and those who have worked with the reality TV star are convinced his many apologies are sincere and heartfelt.
“He’s not a racist,” said Niger Ennis, national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, who was at Wednesday’s press event. “He wasn’t a racist before he got to meet us and he’s certainly not a racist after he has gotten to know us,” Niger added.
‘Dog’ Chapman’s oldest son said the tight knit family grew even closer after the recorded phone call caused a media frenzy. Duane Lee Chapman, one of the stars of the TV show, says he still talks with his half-brother Tucker, who is serving time in a Hawaii jail for a drug conviction. He said the Chapman clan tried to rehabilitate Tucker but that the 24 year old had “spun out of control.”
“I talk to him once in a while on the phone,” said Lee Chapman. “He’s gonna go to rehab, he’s gotta go to drug court. He’s got to do a bunch of things that the courts ordered - this time it’s not just us.”
‘Dog’ says he doesn’t hold a grudge against his son for selling the private phone conversation to a tabloid. “Tucker is still my son,” he said. “I will love him forever.”
Beth Chapman, the bounty hunting wife who is the most visible person in the reality television show next to ‘Dog’, says if anyone could look inside her husband’s heart they would “integrity, bravery, honor (and) love.”
“(He’s) the most kind, caring and considerate man that I’ve ever known in my whole life,” she said
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