Duane 'Dog' Chapman Opens Up About Grieving Wife: 'There'll Never Be Another Beth'

Hannah Yasharoff of USA Today wrote:

Dog the Bounty Hunter star Beth Chapman had been battling for a few years before her death last month. Still, her husband and co-star Duane "Dog" Chapman says there's no way to be ready to lose a loved one.

"Prepared? No, you're never, ever prepared," Chapman recently told Entertainment Tonight. "You can't prepare. There is no way. I did not know that this was going to happen that day... There is not another Beth. There'll never be another Beth. There ain't a girl built like another Beth."

Beth Chapman died from Stage 4 lung cancer at age 51 on June 26, Duane announced to fans at the time. Days prior, she had been taken to the intensive care unit at a Hawaii hospital and placed in a medically-induced coma.

Duane also got candid about the heartbreaking conversations he and Beth had for the "two to three years" when she "knew this might happen."

"She would say, 'Who is going to sit next to you?' And I said, 'No one,'" he said. " 'Big Daddy, you better not let another girl take my place.' I said, 'I won't.' "

He continued: "But everyday 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.' "

In the "last few moments" before she was rushed to the hospital, Duane recalled his wife asking him to "please, let me go."

The Chapman family held the first of two planned memorial services in Hawaii on June 29. The afternoon service, which was open to the public, honored Chapman's life as she was "sent off in true Hawaiian style, with aloha," family lawyer Andrew Brettler previously told USA TODAY.

"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."

A second memorial is scheduled for Saturday afternoon in Aurora, Colorado. Chapman previously told fans it would be an opportunity to "tuck (Beth) in, tell her goodnight, for she sleepeth."