Baby Lyssa was a popular member of the Chapman family bounty hunting dynasty. However, even her biggest fans might not know about her tumultuous childhood, or what she's been up to since Dog The Bounty Hunter went off the air.
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00:00Baby Lisa was a popular member of the Chapman family bounty hunting dynasty. However,
00:05even her biggest fans might not know about her tumultuous childhood,
00:09or what she's been up to since Dog the Bounty Hunter went off the air.
00:13Lisa Chapman was born in 1987 to Dwayne Dog Chapman and his third wife,
00:18Lisa Rae Britton. She joined her father on his show, Dog the Bounty Hunter,
00:22when she was still a teenager, but at that point she'd already been through the ringer.
00:25To truly appreciate how far Lisa has come,
00:28it's important to take note of just how harrowing her childhood really was.
00:32Some Dog the Bounty Hunter fans might have assumed that she and her dad always got along,
00:36but that isn't the case. When she was just 11 years old,
00:39Lisa falsely accused her father of sexual assault, telling Fox News,
00:43"'I had been molested by a friend of his. It was a horrible life that I never wanted
00:47to go back to, living with him and Beth and the fighting and the drugs.'"
00:51"'I raised her until she was 11, and then she went with her mother.'"
00:55When Lisa went to live with her mother in Alaska, she soon realized that substance
00:59abuse was part of that household, too. At the time, however, the environment seemed
01:03more manageable. She said,
01:05"'When I got to my mother's, although she drank, it was much more peaceful.
01:08I was in school, I had friends, I was willing to do anything to not go back.'"
01:12She noted that her mother was inclined to accept her accusations against Dog, as fact, saying,
01:17"'I think she wanted very badly to believe it, because she had so many hard feelings
01:20towards my father.'" Despite their fraught history, Dwayne and Lisa managed to reconcile.
01:25In the same Fox News interview, Lisa said that she hadn't seen her mother since 2006.
01:31Given her tumultuous upbringing, it's not particularly surprising that Lisa had to
01:35grow up young. She had to confront some parts of adult life, particularly early,
01:39when she got pregnant at 14 years old. Her daughter, Abby Mae Chapman, was born the day
01:44after Lisa turned 15. Abby's father was in his 20s at the time, and he eventually pleaded
01:49guilty to statutory rape. By the time she joined the reality show in 2005, Lisa was 18 years old
01:55and already a few years into motherhood. As you may imagine, being a young mom wasn't easy for
02:00her, and evidently, her strained relationship with her own mother didn't help matters.
02:04As Lisa told Fox News,
02:06"'Right after I had the baby, my mom moved with her boyfriend. Basically,
02:09she just stuck us in a trailer and told us to pay rent. At one point,
02:13it was just me and my daughter, and I was coming up with $500 rent every month by babysitting."
02:18At the time, her relationship with her dad was still fractured, so she couldn't reach out to him.
02:23In short, Lisa was a kid raising a kid, and she didn't have the support system she needed.
02:29"'I really felt like there was no future for me. Like, I was a teen mom,
02:32I was poor, I was living in Alaska with my mom."
02:36When Lisa Chapman joined the Dog the Bounty Hunter roster, the series already had a full
02:40season under its belt. While some reality show newcomers might study up and check out old seasons
02:45before signing on, Lisa took a different route. As she told Fox News, she didn't have cable at
02:50her mom's place, so she didn't see the show until she was actually on it. She recalled,
02:54"'I had heard Dad was the star of a show, but I didn't know anything about it,
02:57so when I saw those cameras the first day, I was astonished.'"
03:00Producers made a meal out of Lisa's Season 2 debut. The episode, which was called
03:05"'Babies Back in Town," chronicled her big return to Hawaii after she'd spent six years in Alaska.
03:10On her 2023 episode of the Rumor Mill podcast,
03:13Lisa said she felt ready to give living with her dad another shot at that point in her life.
03:18"'I kind of just changed my mindset and stepped into my power.'"
03:23In 2007, scandal struck Dog the Bounty Hunter after Dwayne was heard using racist language
03:28on a recording. The series was temporarily suspended, but it returned the following year.
03:32It would stay on the air for four more years. The year after Dog the Bounty Hunter concluded,
03:37Lisa Chapman released a memoir called Walking on Eggshells,
03:40Discovering Strength and Courage Amid Chaos. Ahead of the book's release,
03:44Lisa told Fox News that she was compelled to put her life story to paper after so many people
03:48told her how interesting it was. She explained,
03:50"'That was what really inspired me to write the story, because when I did tell people
03:54little tidbits of my life, their reaction was, wow, I can't believe you're still standing.
03:58So I thought, well, this would be a really good story to get out.'"
04:01With the help of publisher Simon & Schuster, Lisa was able to turn her dream into a reality.
04:06Speaking on the Rumor Mill, she reflected on how much it meant to get her own story out there.
04:11"'I wanted to talk about that. I wanted to talk about, like,
04:14recovery and teen parenthood and the things that I went through in my childhood.'"
04:20Chapman wasn't totally ready to move on from the cameras after Dog the Bounty Hunter ended.
04:24As she dished to Fox News in 2013, she started working on a reality series that was totally
04:29different from her family's show. She said,
04:32"'We're putting it together,
04:33a show with teen moms helping them get jobs and helping them with their families.
04:36Teens are so bombarded with sex these days. It's all about sex and then when they get pregnant,
04:40it becomes this big glorified event or they're shamed by their family.'"
04:44Years later, she shared a few more details about the series on the Rumor Mill podcast,
04:48but said the plans ultimately didn't pan out.
04:50While that show never came to fruition, Lisa's small screen days weren't over just yet.
04:55She's not only had a cameo alongside her family on Hawaii Five-O,
04:59but she popped up in a couple of episodes of Dwayne and Beth Chapman's spinoff,
05:02Dog and Beth on the Hunt. However, Lisa said on the Rumor Mill,
05:06she's not sure she'd ever throw her hat back in the reality TV ring.
05:10"'I don't think so.'"
05:12Chapman may be done with living her life in front of the reality TV cameras,
05:16but she has not stopped giving fans a peek into her life via social media.
05:20In recent years, the Dog the Bounty Hunter alum has stayed active on Instagram, pun intended.
05:25The former reality TV star regularly posts about her workouts,
05:29which include long hikes and at-home exercise sessions. Lisa's love of exercise evidently
05:34inspired her to launch her very own line of clothing that included activewear.
05:37Her brand, which was called Baby by Lisa Chapman, was started near the end of 2019.
05:42However, she told the Rumor Mill it took a little while to get things rolling due to the pandemic.
05:47"'We took a break and we just picked it back up and it's actually doing really, really well.'"
05:52Sadly, it sounds like that momentum didn't stick. As of late 2024,
05:56there aren't any products available on Baby by Lisa Chapman's online store,
06:00and the brand's Instagram account has not been updated since 2023.
06:04Chapman's look has certainly changed since her days on Dog the Bounty Hunter,
06:08but that is to be expected given how many years have passed.
06:12After all, a lot of time has gone by since her reality TV career.
06:16"'People are always like, you look so different, you've had all this plastic
06:18surgery and you've done all this stuff. And I'm like, no dude, I was 18.'"
06:22While she may not have gotten work done, she has made some changes to her appearance.
06:27Much like her time on her dad's reality show, she has cycled through hair colors and styles
06:31a number of times in the past handful of years. In 2020, she showed off a new light blonde lob
06:36on Instagram. By 2021, it seemed she'd reverted back to darker shades again.
06:41Then in 2022, she showed off an even shorter chop on Instagram.
06:45When Lisa Chapman was a kid, she watched both of her parents struggle with addiction and
06:49substance abuse. At a young age, she also began using drugs. As she told Fox News,
06:54people have problems and sometimes their young children get caught in the middle of their
06:57problems. She began her recovery journey after she was arrested in 2011. Recalling the excursion,
07:03she explained,
07:04"'Somebody put something in my drink and I was out walking the streets at 3 in the morning.
07:08The cops arrested me for disturbing the peace.'"
07:10Lisa didn't stop drinking alcohol for a little while after that.
07:14In December 2022, she took to Facebook to share that she'd made a major life change.
07:18She told her followers that she had dabbled with sobriety in the past. But in 2021,
07:23she had a transformative moment after she was unable to drive her sick dog to the vet. She wrote,
07:29"'When I finally got someone to take me,
07:30I was at the vet with a buzz and a sick dog and I remember thinking,
07:33what if this had been my child?' Lisa went on to say that after the initial 30 days,
07:38she couldn't help but notice how much better she felt. In another post,
07:41dated December 2022, she celebrated 18 months of sobriety. In the comments section,
07:46she acknowledged that being sober during the holiday season was hard,
07:50but she was ready to keep sticking to it.
07:53Longtime fans of her father's show might remember that Lisa was previously married
07:57to Beau Galanti, with whom she had her youngest daughter, Madeline Grace.
08:02To be asking the dog to marry his daughter, you know,
08:06it was really intimidating for a lot of guys."
08:08The marriage lasted just one year, but Lisa didn't close herself off to finding love again.
08:13She began dating Layonna Evanson in 2016,
08:16and in 2022, the pair tied the knot in a dreamy beach wedding in Hawaii.
08:20Lisa took to Instagram to share photos of the special day, captioning the post,
08:24"'With our feet in the water, we connected ourselves to the power and vastness of the ocean.
08:28We were hugged by the majestic Koalau Mountain Range that will continue hugging us as we live
08:33and spend the rest of our lives together at Maka'ala Mihi."
08:36Dwayne Chapman wasn't there on the day,
08:38but Lisa told People magazine that he listened to the ceremony over the phone.
08:42She also insisted that he is totally on board with her marriage to Evanson,
08:45despite his history of homophobic comments. She said,
08:49"'I think it's really hard for people who are Christian and do have that
08:52belief that marriage belongs to a man and a woman. I don't want to put words in his
08:55mouth because I don't know what his exact feelings about it are,
08:58but he's never shown me anything other than support.'"
09:02While Dog the Bounty Hunter has publicly feuded with some of his other children,
09:05he and Lisa seem to still be on good terms, to a point. As Lisa noted on The Rumor Mill,
09:10however, her father's political views do make it tough.
09:13"'So it's put some strain on our relationship, but we still talk and we're okay.'"
09:17She also acknowledged that she doesn't really talk to most of her siblings anymore.
09:21Even so, in 2024, Lisa posted a throwback photo of herself bounty hunting alongside the caption,
09:26"'Guess who's getting back into the family business? Taking my bail test tomorrow.
09:30Look out, Oahu, the Chapmans are back.'"
09:33This return to form delighted Lisa's followers,
09:35with many of them taking to the comments section to cheer her on.
09:38She also revealed in a reply that she previously had a license,
09:41but it lapsed after she failed to keep up with the continuing classes.
09:45What Lisa plans to do with her license remains unclear, as of late 2024.
09:49As she told The Rumor Mill, she doesn't know if she'll get back to full-time bounty hunting with
09:53Dog, who is now in his 70s and seems to be dedicating time to other pursuits.
09:57Either way, this is surely not the last we'll see of baby Lisa.
10:01If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, visit the Rape,
10:05Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE 4673.