Dog the Bounty Hunter off air after Chapman’s racial slur

5 November, 2007:

A reality-television show starring celebrity bounty hunter Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman has been taken off air indefinitely.

The withdrawal took place on November 2, 2007, two days after a private phone conversation, in which Chapman used a racial slur, was posted online.

Cable channel A&E suspended production of the fifth series of Dog the Bounty Hunter, Chapman’s popular show, as the phone call was made public on October 31, 2007.

Dog the Bounty Hunter, which went on the air in 2004, was one of highest rated shows of A&E, with an average of 1.2 million viewers in prime time.

“In evaluating the circumstances of the last few days, A&E has decided to take Dog the Bounty Hunter off the network’s schedule for the foreseeable future,” media reports quoted a spokesman for A&E as saying. “We hope that Duane Chapman continues the healing process that he has begun,” he
added.

He said it has not yet been decided to cancel the program, which is shown in over 10 countries, and that the network will review the situation again in a
few weeks.

Duane Chapman, 54, based in Honolulu, who says he is a devout Christian, has apologised for using the epithet “n-----“ to describe an African-American
woman being dated by his son, Tucker Chapman. Chapman has also vowed to do whatever he can to repair the damage.

According to media reports, Duane Chapman’s lawyer said the controversial conversation, posted on the website of the tabloid The National Enquirer, had been leaked by Tucker Chapman, one of Duane Chapman’s 12 children.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Yum Brands, which advertised Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut on Dog the Bounty Hunter, had pulled all of its advertisements, describing Duane Chapman’s comments as “despicable.”

Duane Chapman, a brawny ex-con sporting long blond hair and dressed in leather, shot to fame after he tracked and captured Andrew Luster, Max Factor’s heir and serial rapist, in Mexico in 2003.

The wide media attention that Duane Chapman received over his “crime-catching” led to an offer for a reality-television show, which tracks Chapman
and his team as they track down people who skip bail and fail to show up in court.

Duane Chapman happens to be the latest celebrity in the United States to have landed in trouble for using offensive language.

Michael Richards, Jerry Seinfeld's co-star in the television series Seinfeld, had triggered a tumult in late 2006 when he threw racial insults at hecklers at a comedy club. He later apologized for his bad behavior, saying that he had lost his temper.