Dog the Bounty Hunter says he had ‘free pass’ to use N-word

Dog the Bounty Hunter has claimed he had a ‘free pass’ to use racial slurs.

The 68 year-old, real name Duane Chapman, denied being a racist while speaking exclusively to Entertainment Tonight about a leaked phone call that surfaced more than a decade ago where he used the N word several times.

“I have never been a racist. I’m 33.5 per cent Apache. But because of over 15 years ago, I have an Achilles’ heel because I used the wrong word,” he told Kevin Frazier. Apache is a term used to denote six groups of Indigenous people from the Southwestern regions of the US.

This question was in reference to a phone call between Mr Chapman and his son Tucker, who recorded it, where the former television personality repeatedly used the N-word. A tape of the exchange was sold to and published in the National Enquirer in 2007.

The revelation led to the temporary suspension of Dog The Bounty Hunter, a reality show depicting him and his family working in Hawaii’s bail bond industry. It was permanently cancelled in 2012 after eight seasons.

When Mr Frazier asked why he thought it was appropriate to use the term, Mr Chapman said that he believed he had a “pass” to use the word.

"I thought I had a pass in the Black tribe to use it, kind of like Eminem," he told Mr Frazier, who then proceeded to ask him how he got this impression.

Mr Chapman replied, “The brothers.”

“I had just gotten out of prison in 1979 after spending time, 18 months in Texas and it was probably three-fourths from the Black tribe,” he continued.

“So that was a word that we used back and forth, as maybe a compliment. My pass expired for using it but no one told me that.”

Mr Chapman argued to “say a racist name doesn’t qualify to make you racist.” Mr Frazier, unconvinced by this, told him, “if you use that word, if you use it in your everyday life, it makes you a racist.”

Mr Frazier also pushed him on homophobic language he had previously used, saying to Mr Chapman that “proximity does not make you not racist or homophobic” after Chapman informed him he had numerous LGBT+ individuals in his professional and personal life.

The N word can be traced back to the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade in the early 1600s. Academics have said that the word was used to deny people their full humanity, allowing them to bought and sold as if they were property.

Kehinde Andrews, a professor of Black studies at Birmingham City University told the BBC: “When the N-word is used that’s essentially what it’s used for. So I would hope most people would understand why that is deeply offensive and problematic because it still is used in that context now.”

Later in the interview, Chapman was joined by his fiancee Francie Frane as they  discussed the recent allegations made against him by his daughter Bonnie, who accused her father of not inviting him to the couple’s upcoming wedding following her “choice to participate in social justice movements” such as the Black Lives Matter movement.

His daughter also accused him of having an affair while her mother Beth Chapman was dying of cancer. She passed away in 2019. Chapman denied the infidelity allegations during the interview.

The Independent contacted Chapman for comment.