Dog the Bounty Hunter says he had ‘pass’ from ‘the brothers’ to say N-word
"I thought I had a pass in the Black tribe to use it," the reality TV star told "ET" co-host Kevin Frazier, "kind of like Eminem."
Reality star Dog the Bounty Hunter claimed he was given a “pass” to use the N-word by his “brothers” in prison.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier, the reality star — whose real name is Duane Chapman — said, “I thought I had a pass in the Black tribe to use it, kind of like Eminem.”
“Who gave you this pass?” Frazier asks him. Dog responds: “The brothers.”
Frazier follows up with, “Who are the brothers?”
“I had just gotten out of prison in 1979 after spending time, 18 months, in Texas,” Dog answers, “and it was probably three-fourths from the Black tribe. So that was a word that we used back and forth, as maybe a compliment.”
He then notes that he didn’t know his “pass” to use the slur had “expired.”
Chapman adds: “To say a racist name doesn’t qualify to make you a racist.” He also claims he is more than 30% Apache and that he has “never been a racist.”
“If you use that word, if you use it in your regular everyday life, it makes you a racist,” Frazier replies.
The production and airing of Chapman’s reality show on A&E stopped in November 2007 after Chapman’s son, Tucker — who had a Black girlfriend — sold The National Enquirer an audio tape of his dad using the N-word more than six times in a conversation. Dog the Bounty Hunter resumed again in February 2008.
Chapman’s daughter, Bonnie, recently said her father and his fiancée, Francine Frane, didn’t invite her to their wedding because she is a supporter of Black Lives Matter. She says he is both racist and homophobic.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t defend my Dad’s racism,” Bonnie wrote. “When it comes to The System on Unleashed TV, my father was fired by the platform for using racial and homophobic epithets toward my fellow cast members on the show … I have expressed time and time again my ever-growing disappointment in my father’s progression into his old racist ways.”
She also claimed that her father frequently cheated on her mother, Beth Chapman, who died in 2019 of throat cancer.
“He would cheat on my mom all the time, and I hated him every time he did it, but I forgave him for that because I wanted a relationship with my dad,” Bonnie recently claimed in a lengthy Facebook post. “I thought I had only one parent left. I was left with the racist and homophobic parents.”
“My mother was a shining light in the void,” she wrote. “I can no longer watch someone diminish her light with his hatred.”
Chapman told ET his daughter is being “brainwashed.”
In response, Bonnie told the show in an exclusive statement: “As far as the idea that I’m being brainwashed, this is the dumbest thing my father has ever said. I didn’t believe he would go this far to discredit me so much as to say I was brainwashed. I am concerned about him. He has begun to believe crazy conspiracy theories. The only credibility my dad has to speak about brainwashing is perhaps as a victim.”
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