Like Dog The Bounty Hunter, his new fiancée Francie Frane lost a beloved spouse to cancer. Dog (real name Duane Chapman) revealed that these tragedies helped bring them together in an interview with TMZ on May 7. “We hooked up on the phone and started talking to each other, crying and consoling each other. And then one thing led to another,” Dog explained, who said that Francie had lost her husband Bob six months before Beth Chapman passed away in June of 2019. Francie worked as a rancher in Colorado, where Dog resides (they now live together).
“It’s just incredible that I’ve been able to meet someone like her,” Dog gushed. For 10 months, the bounty hunter revealed that he’d “sit around” every single day and “just cried, ‘Where’s my Bethie?'” Dog admitted that he couldn’t “face it,” which is why he’s grateful that he no longer has to bear the tragedy alone. “So with Francie, I’m allowed to speak about Beth,” Dog continued, adding that they also talk about Francie’s late husband. “We cry and we hold each other,” he added.
It was important for Dog to escape his sadness. “I am a fixer. I gotta catch bad guys. I gotta be at the top of my game. I can’t feel sorry for myself or guilty,” he told TMZ. “I gotta get out there and make a difference, that’s what I do for a living….I gotta man up…so [Francie] helps me do that.”
Dog and Francie made their relationship Instagram official in April of 2020, and announced their engagement on May 4! “I wasn’t expecting it at all,” Francie revealed to The Sun, which broke news of Dog’s surprise proposal. “I think I had gone to pick up some food and then when I came back he had all the lights turned down with just a few lights on and a bunch of candles lit. So when I came in I was like, ‘Wow, this is awesome.’ Then he said, ‘Come in, sit down because I need to talk to you.”
Dog was married to Beth between 2006-2019. Despite their 13 years of marriage, Dog’s family welcomed Francie with open arms in these warm social media posts after the engagement news broke!