Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman Admits He’s ‘Broke’ and Reveals Plans for a New Show: ‘It’d Be a Hit’

Following the passing of his beloved wife, Beth Chapman, in June, Duane “Dog” Chapman has struggled to cope. In a new interview, the 66-year-old admitted he is struggling to make ends meet and hopes to take on a new show to help pay the bills and care for his family.

“I’m broke,” he told The New York Times in a feature story published on Friday, January 17. Dog attributed his financial situation to years of medical bills and being the provider for his 12 children. At the time, Dog was on a mission to hunt down a fugitive. He said that if he failed to catch the criminal, he would have to pay $1.5 million and risk losing his Colorado home.

Despite his financial setback, he has some big plans to accomplish one of his life-long goals of becoming a sheriff — and film it, of course. “I think it’d be a hit,” he told the publication. In order for Dog to do so, he needs to be pardoned from the state of Texas for his murder conviction in 1976. At the time, Dog was a part of an outlaw motorcycle club and involved in a drug deal that went south. While he waited in a getaway car, a man was shot and killed. According to Texas law, he was an accessory in the murder. He served 18 months in a Texas state prison for the crime. If Dog is pardoned, he would be a real sheriff in a town that needs cleaning up, he told the outlet.

Duane admitted in August that he was struggling with more than just money after losing Beth. “Never did I think it would be this bad,” he said of dealing with the loss of his wife in an exclusive interview with In Touch. “When she was with me, I would say, ‘Get in there right now cause someday maybe she won’t be here.’”

He continued, “I would pick her Kleenexes up off the floor and say, ‘someday these Kleenexes won’t be here.’ Now when I go in there and they’re not there I’m like ‘I told myself, so it’s OK. I told myself so.’ So I kind of prepared myself whether she prepared it or not to, you know, see what it could’ve been like.”

Beth died at the age of 51 after battling stage 2 throat cancer. She had been struggling with the illness since 2017.