Duane 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' Chapman Reveals Comforting Words Late Wife Beth Told Him Before She Died
Two months before Beth Chapman died following a battle with cancer, Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman made a final promise to her.
In an exclusive clip of Monday’s episode of The Dr. Oz Show, the Dog’s Most Wanted star, 66, revealed how Beth offered some comforting words prior to her untimely death in June that has continued to stick with him today.
“My parrot died about two months before Beth left me, and I was crying,” Duane recalled to Dr. Oz in the clip. “And she said, ‘Why are you crying? It’s a bird!’ I said, ”Cause I loved him!’ She said, ‘Big Daddy, you’re gonna be so sad when I die, but it’s gonna be okay.'”
“She said, ‘The bible says time heals all wounds’ — and I looked and it’s not in there — and she said, ‘With time, it’ll get better, but don’t you ever take my name off your chest!'”
“I promise you, honey, I won’t,” Duane added as he showed off his “Beth” tattoo on his left pectoral muscle.
In addition to disclosing what Beth told him before she died, Duane revealed on the show how he is now suffering from a pulmonary embolism in the heart — a “life-threatening” condition in which one or more arteries has been blocked by blood — two weeks after he was hospitalized for chest pains.
“You’re a ticking time bomb,” Dr. Oz, who went to visit Duane at his Denver home, told the TV star. “You’re not going to be here with the heart the way it is right now. Fear of death is normal. I’m surprised you don’t fear death when you’re chasing after convicts. But when you run away from doctor, that means you have to do your own doctoring.”
Speaking to PEOPLE after the diagnosis, Dr. Oz said Duane was “denying care that he knew would be life-saving.”
“[Duane] was fearful,” he revealed. “Beth had been his North Star. She was the one that would go with him and keep him balanced so he could deal with these things. Losing her took away his biggest support.”
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“I said, ‘What would Beth do,'” he added. “‘What would she say to you? I don’t think she’d be happy with what you’re doing. You’re throwing away your life, you’re throwing away your ability to parent your kids. You have to man up.’ That’s what she would say.”
Though Duane was wary of doctors and hospitals, he eventually came to an understanding and is now on the road to recovery, taking blood thinners, eating a healthy diet, and making strides towards quitting smoking.
“I hesitated for a minute thinking, I don’t want to have to go through this again,” Duane told PEOPLE. “I don’t want to die right now. I’m not afraid to die anymore, but I really didn’t care for awhile if something would happen. I do care now.”
RELATED: Duane ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Chapman Says a ‘Broken Heart’ Sent Him to the Hospital
In mid-September, Duane was taken to a hospital in Colorado after feeling a pain in his chest, TMZ reported. His hospitalization came nearly three months after Beth died of complications from throat cancer on June 26. She was 51.
Duane has previously revealed how some of Beth’s final words were spent ensuring that her family was okay.
“When she had an attack I didn’t know anything to do but to say ‘in Jesus’ name’ and hold her and when I said ‘in Jesus’ name’ she said, ‘Say it again, say it more,'” Duane recalled hours after her death. “And then she told the girls and everybody, with her mouth — she came out of it a couple times — ‘I love you’ and ‘Are you guys all okay? Don’t worry,’ but she never accepted it.”
A month later, Duane opened up to Entertainment Tonight and explained that as Beth prepared to die, she told him to simply let her go.
“The last few moments, she said, ‘Come in here right now, in the bathroom,'” he recounted. “I went in and she said, ‘Look at me.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you’re freaking beautiful baby.’ [And she said,] ‘Look at me, Duane Chapman.’ And I did, I always saw Beth and she said, ‘Please, let me go.'”
“And I didn’t even make a decision, I almost said, ‘I can’t.’ Before I could say, ‘All right,’ she couldn’t breathe and I called the ambulance,” he continued. “But every day she talked as if she was not there. ‘Here’s what to do with this, here’s what to do with that. Don’t keep running your mouth. When they ask you a specific question, just answer that.'”