Duane “Dog” Chapman’s Taped Conservation
During this taped conversation with his son Tucker, Chapman used strong language, including the word “nigger”, when referring to Monique Shinnery, his son’s black girlfriend. The audiotape, which Tucker sold to the National Enquirer, has lead one civil rights leader to call for Chapman’s popular Dog the Bounty Hunter show on A&E to be canceled. After the tape was made public, A&E announced it was suspending production for the series pending an investigation. Civil rights leader Roy Innis said that Chapman “should not have a show”. This is what Duane “Dog” Chapman said;
Duane “Dog” Chapman: “I don’t care if she’s a Mexican, a whore or whatever. It’s not because she’s black, it’s because we use the word nigger sometimes here. I’m not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I’ve worked for for 30 years because some fucking nigger heard us say nigger and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I’m not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa [Dog’s daughter] was dating a nigger, we would all say ‘fuck you!’ And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home ya da da… it’s not that they’re black, it’s none of that. It’s that we use the word nigger. We don’t mean you fucking scum nigger without a soul. We don’t mean that shit. But America would think we mean that. And we’re not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can’t do that Tucker. You can’t expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to [garbled] because ‘I’m in love for 7 months’ - fuck that! So, I’ll help you get another job but you can not work here unless you break up with her and she’s out of your life. I can’t handle that shit. I got ‘em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she’s gonna wear a recorder…”
Tucker Chapman: “I don’t even know what to say.”
On 1 November 2007, Chapman issued a public statement apologizing for his “regrettable use of very inappropriate language”. Chapman also claimed that the statements were taken out of context and that he was “disappointed in his [son’s] choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character”, his lawyer claimed Chapman’s son sold the recording of his father’s conversation to the National Enquirer for “a lot of money”.
On 2 November 2007, A&E announced it is removing the show from their schedule “for the foreseeable future”. On the same day Yum Brands announced pulling ad support for the TV series.
