Duane "Dog" Chapman hit an all-time low shortly after losing his wife and begged God to send him a woman to ease his pain. It all became too much for the 67-year-old star of the series "Dog the Bounty Hunter," one day after he had undergone surgery from a cancer scare and was wandering around the hospital's parking lot trying to find his car.
"I still couldn't find my car and I remember thinking, 'Man, if a girl was here, if Beth was here or someone was here to help me, I could find it,'" Duane said in an interview with The Sun, published Tuesday.
Duane eventually located his car and was driving home when he began feeling "really depressed" and "alone." He decided to pull over on the side of the road to speak to God.
"I got all these girls sending me pictures without their shirts on I'm like, 'Oh my God, what am I going to do?'" he said. "So I said 'I've got to have somebody Lord, Beth is up there partying in Heaven and I'm down here balling my eyes out here every single day. Lord I need more.'"
Duane said he left it in God's hands and a few weeks later he met fiancé Francie France, who he has just popped the question to, The Sun reported on Monday.
The pair met shortly after France's husband, Bob, passed away from cancer six months before Beth died in June last year. They helped each other get through the grief and eventually started dating.
Duane said he was initially reluctant to start a relationship because "hitting on widows" was "not cool" but they shared chemistry from the first day they met. He then recalled his conversation with God.
"But on my way home I remembered my prayer. I remember thinking 'My God, this can't be her Lord?'"
In the interview with The Sun, Duane also spoke of his cancer scare. "I had a sore on my head and the doctor called me and said, 'You have cancer.’" he said.
"So I went to the hospital, they operated, and they checked it out again.” Duane says the cancer turned out to be "not the deadly type. It's like a skin sore," he explained. "So I had one on the nose removed leaving eight stitches and one on the forehead, which needed 10 stitches. So I got it done."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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