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'DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER' UPDATE: Chapman interviewed on Fox News; more family and friends say he's always been racist; more advertisers pull out.
*The fallout continues from a phone call leaked to the National Enquirer in which Duane "Dog" Chapman says the N-word six times during a conversation with his son Tucker about his black girlfriend.
Chapman ran to Fox News Tuesday and sat for his first interview since A&E suspended his reality series "Dog the Bounty Hunter." He says he has always felt close to black people and never used the N-word "out of hate."
"There's a special connection that I thought I had between me and black America," Chapman told Fox's Hannity & Colmes. "And I used to say, 'I'm black, too.'
"In other words, my whole life I've been called a half-breed, a convict, king of the trailer trash, this and that…so when I stood there and said, 'I kind of know what you feel like, because I've been there, too,' that I felt that I could embrace and like, as brothers…say the word."
"I now learned I'm not black at all, and I never did it out of hate," Chapman continued. "This sounds so stupid. I always did it out of love. Other white guys would be like, 'Boy, who does Dog think he is? Dog can say that.' And black guys would be with me and walk with me and respect me. So, I went too far with that."
It was Tucker who sold the eight-month-old telephone conversation to the Enquirer for a rumored $15,000. Regarding Tucker's girlfriend Monique Shinnery, Chapman said on the tape that he's uncomfortable having a black girl around "because we use the word n---er sometimes here. I'm not going to take any chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for 30 years because some drunken n---er heard us say n---er and turned us into the Enquirer magazine."
"So, I will help you get another job, but you cannot work here unless you break up with her and she is out of your life," Chapman tells his son. "I can't handle that s--t."
Meanwhile, the Enquirer has interviewed more people close to Chapman who claim the reality TV star has used racist language for as long as they can remember.
"I think Dog is a racist — no question," said Dog's former wife Lyssa Chapman. Lyssa was married to the bounty from 1982-1991 and is the mother of three of his children, including Tucker. "He ran down every single minority group when I was with him, and n---er was a daily word for him. He called Mexican people 'beaners' or 'wetbacks' and Asian people 'flangeheads.' I would tell him not to talk that way in front of our kids, but he just ignored me."
Lyssa recalled an incident in Denver in which she says Dog lashed out at an interracial couple in a grocery store.
"Dog said to the woman, 'I know that's got to be your pimp! I know you wouldn't be f-----g him if you weren't getting paid!' They were husband and wife, but when the man started to object, Dog just went crazy, screaming at him, 'I'll kick your ass.'"
Peggy Munoz, now a private investigator in Lakewood, Colo., was a former bail bondsman working the same turf as Chapman from 1989 to 2005. She claims Dog once sat in her office and explained his "approach" to the bail bond business.
"Dog said, 'I don't like to bond out n----rs because they don't have any money and I have trouble collecting on them. And I don't like to bond out Mexicans because, well, they just run.'"
Among advertisers that have pulled out of the suspended "Dog the Bounty Hunter" are Yum! Brands, Inc., the company that runs Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. Advertisers Dr. Frank's pain relief and SiCap Industries, LLC, makers of Sinus Buster capsaicin nasal sprays, have also joined the growing boycott.
"They should pull the show completely and never air reruns or anything with Chapman ever again," SiCap president Wayne Perry says in a press release. "A&E should wash their hands of this guy. Dog's rant has personally disrupted my faith in people, and we will never associate any of our brands with any forum that supports racism in any way. As far as we're concerned, the only way A&E will be in our ad budget next year is if they dump the Dog. This goes far beyond what Don Imus said on MSNBC, and they fired him immediately."
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