Duane 'Dog' Chapman Told Late Wife Beth He'd Date Again, But Promised He'll 'Never Get Married'
While Duane “Dog” Chapman is still grieving the loss of his wife, Beth Chapman, he isn’t closed off to pursuing another relationship when the time is right.
“I probably will do that, and I told her that,” Duane, 66, told PEOPLE Now on Wednesday. “What deal we said is I will never take ‘Beth’ off my chest, I have her name here. And I will never get married.”
“And she said to me, ‘We are human, okay?'” the reality star continued. “And probably the same thing I’d say to her: ‘I know you’re gonna have a boyfriend, I hope you have 10, but don’t go fricking marry one, and say those words. Don’t you dare do that.’ I would say that, and she did say that to me.”
Beth died at the age of 51 on June 26 following her aggressive cancer diagnosis. And as her and Duane’s children continue to mourn, they are not ready to see their dad move on.
“And I’m trying to tell them, I don’t know I can’t rent one you guys, I don’t know what to say,” he joked of a possible new girlfriend. “But right now, they are like ‘dad!'”
Duane said that given their agreement before Beth passed, he feels okay with eventually dating again. “Unless she haunts me,” he joked.
While Duane is still struggling, he explained to PEOPLE Now that he’s found comfort in music, as well as “being not alone, with friends and family.”
The Colorado native also spoke about the support he and his family have received from fans since he lost his wife.
“She had 30 million hits on her articles, that’s like unbelievable,” he said. “So that means a lot. Your fans keep you going, keep you alive, keep you happy, are your friends that you meet, so that helped her a lot too, with the battle. And now it’s helping me with this battle.”
Beth’s difficult cancer battle will be explored in upcoming WGN America series Dog’s Most Wanted, which will begin Duane’s first chapter “without Beth.”
“Where mercy is shown, mercy is given, and I have a lot of mercy,” he explained. “But she isn’t here anymore. So this is going to be Dog without Beth, and she always told him, you better be lucky I’m with him, you’re lucky I’m here with him, cause he’s a maniac. And I am a good guy, I’m a good guy, and a all around slayer of dragons. I’m going slaying, brotha.”
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Duane revealed that as Beth prepared to die on June 26, 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.’”
RELATED: Dog the Bounty Hunter Says Beth Chapman Told Him ‘Let Me Go’ in Final Moments Before Death
Duane continued to ET, “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 … 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.'”
After Beth’s passing, the family honored her at a gathering with friends and fans at Fort DeRussy Beach in Waikiki, Hawaii, as well as at an emotional memorial service at the Heritage Christian Center in Aurora, Colorado.
Dog’s Most Wanted premieres on Sept. 4 at 9 p.m. ET on WGN America.