Duane (Dog) Chapman opened up about the loss of his wife, Beth Chapman, in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight‘s Kevin Frazier.
Beth, who starred on the reality show Dog the Bounty Hunter, died on June 26 after a battle with cancer. She was 51.
WATCH: Beth Chapman, ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ star, has died
Chapman opened up about life after the death of Beth and said there’s no way to be prepared to lose someone you love.
When Frazier asked if there is such thing as “manning up,” Chapman responded: “You’re asking me that? You know there is.”
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Chapman continued: “I am a crybaby. I blame it on my heritage. I cry talking about crying so I would be crying through the whole thing. And I sob; I can’t stop it so I can’t do that. And decisions — ‘I can’t make them right now I just lost my wife.’ You can’t do that. You can’t use it as an excuse.”
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Chapman said that “manning up” in regards to his wife’s death means to “face it, take over it.”
READ MORE: Beth Chapman dead — ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ star dies of cancer at 51
Frazier then asked Chapman what he had inside the pink box beside him.
The reality TV star told Frazier that Beth wants him to scatter some of her ashes and leave some on the fireplace.
WATCH: Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman’s first public interview on the passing of his wife, Beth
He added: “Of course, when I go to heaven, she wants me in the box with her… I will.”
He told Frazier that when he was going to do the scattering of the ashes, he looked in the box and thought: “I’m not going to like… throw you away.”
“I just throw you away and start over? No, I can’t do that,” a tearful Chapman said to Frazier.
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Chapman also told Entertainment Tonight that Beth had tried to prepare him for when she would no longer be by his side.
“For two to three years, she knew this might happen so she would say: ‘Who is going to sit next to you?’ And I said: ‘No one,'” he tearfully shared. “‘Big Daddy, you better not let another girl take my place.’ I said: ‘I won’t.'”
He said that in the “last few moments” before she was was rushed to the hospital, she told Chapman to “please, let me go.”
“And I didn’t even make a decision. I almost said: ‘I can’t,'” he said. “Before I could say, ‘Alright,’ she couldn’t breathe and I called the ambulance.”
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Beth was diagnosed with throat cancer in September 2017 after getting a nagging cough checked out. A tumour was removed, and she was declared cancer-free. But in November 2018, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
Born Alice Elizabeth Smith in Denver, Beth had lived in Honolulu since 1989. In 2006, she and Duane, the self-proclaimed world’s best bounty hunter, married during a sunset ceremony at a Big Island resort after being together for 16 years.
The couple met when he posted her bond for a shoplifting arrest, she told Rosie O’Donnell on The Rosie Show.
There are 12 children between the couple. They had 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
—With files from the Associated Press
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