Dog the Bounty Hunter, the star of the A&E reality series of the same name that follows him capturing criminals who have jumped bail, was taped using the N word repeatedly while going off on his son for dating an African American woman.

Apparently Dog’s son taped a conversation with his dad and turned it in to the National Enquirer. When I first heard this story, I thought it was a simple case of the guy being racist, using the N word and telling his son not to date someone based on the color of her skin. It’s more complicated and stupid than that. The audio of the conversation is on TMZ, and Dog tries to tell his son not to date a black woman, not because he’s racist or anything, but because he’s afraid that someone is going to catch him using the N word around his son’s new girlfriend.

It sounds to me like the asshole gave his son the excellent idea of talking to the National Enquirer, my favorite trashy gossip rag, by telling him specifically that he feared that he would get turned into the Enquirer if someone heard him use the N word.

Here is the transcript of the audio, which is available on TMZ, in case you can’t listen at work or don’t want to subject yourself to this shit:

I’m not taking a chance on some motherf-bleep- I don’t care if she’s a Mexican, a whore, whatever, it’s not cause she’s black it’s because we use the word nigger sometimes here. I’m not going to take a chance ever in life losing everything I worked for for 30 years cause some f-bleep- nigger heard us say nigger and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over. If Lise was dating a nigger we would all say f-bleep- you and you know that. If Lisa brought a black guy home yeah (unintelligible) and it’s not that they’re black it’s none of that, it’s that we use the word nigger we don’t mean you f-bleep-ing scum nigger without a soul, we don’t mean that shit, but America would think we mean that.

[Transcribed from the audio available on TMZ]

So, in Dog’s twisted logic, he could lose his entire career because he can’t stop using the most foul racist term and that it would be his son’s fault for having a black girlfriend. Does the word just spew out of his mouth without his knowledge when a black person gets in his vicinity? The guy must have tourettes.

I just love that Dog’s son turned the tape over to the Enquirer after his dad said he feared losing his career if that happened.

It looks like all of Dog’s concerns could be coming to fruition. A&E has announced that it has suspended production on his reality series until they thoroughly investigate the matter. You know they’re just talking to their lawyers and trying to figure out how to tie up all the lose ends before dropping the guy.

Meanwhile Dog has asked esteemed Reverend Al Sharpton to help him, and has retained the African American pastor that performed his last marriage to speak on his behalf. He has also released a statement saying how sorry he is. The pastor makes sure we know that Dog has gone to black churches “to help inner-city kids” before all this happened. I wonder if he used the N word in front of the little kids, because he pretty much told his son that it just comes out without his knowledge when black people are around. Was he uttering it under his breath repeatedly while he was taking his vows?