Carole Baskin SPEAKS OUT Against Tiger King and Netflix New Bonus Episode!

URL copied to clipboard.

Carole Baskin the big-cat activist who is the target of the murder-for-hire plot in Netflix’s “Tiger King,” has been slamming the streaming giant and says she was not even asked to be apart of a new bonus episode for the series. 

“Tiger King” follows Joe Exotic, the owner of a big-cat zoo in Oklahoma. Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage. Throughout the series you meet more of these characters including a former cocaine drug lord running a secret conservation facility; Jeff Lowe, a swinger who sneaks cubs into high-end hotels for parties and to attract women; Tim Stark, owner of the roadside zoo Wildlife in Need; and even Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, an animal trainer who founded a 20-acre animal preserve in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has multiple wives, and trains animals for Hollywood films.

Joe Exotic, is, to quote a description of him from the docuseries, a “redneck, gun-toting, mullet-sporting, tiger-tackling, gay polygamist.” However, Joe Exotic has an enemy, and her name is Carole Baskin. Carole has a rescue sanctuary dedicated to providing big cats with a home, and she is very against keeping big cats captive and caged.

To truly say that Joe Exotic is obsessed with this woman is a true understatement. He talks about Carole and his rivalry with her quite a bit throughout the series and how she truly believes what he is doing is unruly and unjust. While Carole is against Joe running a zoo with exotic animals, he has his arguments for why what he’s doing is not wrong and perhaps even beneficial. Joe believes showing families these animals up close and personal gets their undivided attention, which he can use to tell them to save the rainforests that tigers live in. Throughout the series, you even see Joe going to malls around the country to let people pet cubs, but Carole put a stop to that. 

Exotic alleges that Carole Baskin is running a sub-par tiger sanctuary with realistically less than ten tigers total, and that Baskin is mongering a hypocritical campaign focused on harassment against Joe Exotic. In her time, she created websites naming him an animal abuser, hired people or even giving leads to PETA to track his whereabouts, and even damaged potential clients for Joe Exotic. She goes as far to organize protests against Joe exotic, who retaliates by holding big cat shows with patrons who can pay for cub petting, all under the new trademark knockoff of Carol Baskin’s company, Big Cat Rescue. In return, she attempts to sue over the trademark infringement for $1M, and Joe and his zoo spiral out of control both personally and financially. As a result, Exotic attempted to hire someone to murder Baskin, resulting in his later conviction. 

Yet despite all of this, fans are VERY focused on one thing even after the show. Throughout the series, Exotic prompted theories that Carol Baskin actually was involved in the disappearance of her second husband Don Lewis. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Baskin ripped “Tiger King” as being “salacious and sensational” just a few days after the docuseries launched claiming that is all the series focused about. She claims the project she was pitched to participate in was not what ended up on screen, and 

She called out the directors, Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, for what she believes to be a bait-and-switch. “There are no words for how disappointing it is,” Baskin, who said she was asked to be part of “the big cat version of ‘Blackfish,’” stated.

Since the series, Joseph R. Fritz the attorney and friend of Don Lewis, says that in the 40-plus years he’s represented clients in the Sunshine State, he’s “never” seen a case mishandled quite as Lewis’.

Fritz told us he believes the sheriff’s department had “no choice” but to reopen the case as of late because questions started pouring in from captivated viewers demanding answers. The seasoned attorney shared two key issues he had with the sheriff’s department’s investigation back in the late ’90s. The first had to do with investigators waiting days before collecting samples from Lewis’ van after it was found abandoned at a private airport.

As for Carole, there is talks about a bonus episode being filmed thanks to the fan demand and she was not asked to be apart of the filming! “We have not been approached about a new episode and would not participate if asked,” a spokesperson for Baskin told TheWrap. According to Nielsen, the series was watched by 34.3 million people over its first 10 days of release, ranking as one of Netflix’s most successful launches to-date.

ADVERTISEMENT

More headlines