‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Suffers Heart Emergency, Could Require Surgery: Reports

Duane and Beth Chapman in a stock photo (Getty Images | Rick Diamond)

Reality star Duane “Dog” Chapman suffered a heart emergency and might need surgery, it was reported on Sept. 16.

TMZ reported that Chapman, 66, was hospitalized over the weekend. The news outlet cited unnamed sources for the report.

Chapman was taken from his home in Colorado to a local hospital with pain in his chest, the report said, noting that it might have been a heart attack.

Doctors are now performing tests to determine the cause, TMZ reported.

The TMZ report didn’t offer any further details on the diagnosis or treatment.

Chapman, meanwhile, has not issued a public comment. At around 1:35 p.m., following the publication of the report, he tweeted a photo with an addiction hotline that he operates. “Addiction shall not win,” it says.

It comes months after his wife, Beth, died after battling cancer for several years. Since then, Chapman has spoken to several entertainment news websites about the heartbreak he’s suffered since her death.

Dog the Bounty Hunter Star Duane Chapman (C) with his daughter Bonnie (front R) in Edgewater, Colo., on Friday, Aug. 2, 2019. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

In a recent interview, he said that his wife continued to speak about her cancer diagnosis and kept filming their reality TV show until she died.

“She said no, this is my life, and I’m going to show every bit of it. So, she battled it for two years, beat it once, and then it came back very aggressive,” he told Fox News. “And then she decided chemo, she did one treatment, it just about killed her. She couldn’t even move her pinky. So, they said, well, you could get 16 months with chemo or 15 without it. And she said I’ve got to be out there with you and the family. So, she went all the way to the end. The week before she went to heaven, she put a guy in jail.”

In another interview with Entertainment Tonight, he recalled that Beth simply told him to let go as she was preparing to die in late June.

He told the website: “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.'”

Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman (L)  and Leland Chapman attend the 2013 Electus College Humor Holiday Party in Los Angeles, Cali., on Dec. 12, 2013. (Angela Weiss/Getty Images for Electus)

Their children also have been struggling to cope with the loss of their mother.

“We don’t know what to do. We haven’t read, we weren’t prepared. I lost my mother first, and when my mom passed away, I’m like, ‘I wish dad would have died first, you know, ’cause I love my mommy.’ So I went to them and said, ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t die first and mom did,’” Duane Chapman told People magazine.

Duane has four children: Bonnie Chapman, 20, Garry Chapman, 18, Dominic Davis, 34, and Cecily Chapman, 26.

“And they were like, ‘Yeah dad, why?’” Chapman added. “So I was like, ‘Oh my god, I know what that feels like, I should’ve been the one. The guy goes first.’”