While many of us have become shamelessly obsessed with the wild characters, twists, and turns in Netflix‘s Tiger King, one of its biggest stars Carole Baskin is absolutely PISSED about her portrayal in the hit documentary!
On Tuesday, the Big Cat Rescue founder shared a lengthy new post on her organization’s website where she and husband Howard Baskin slammed directors of the series for sharing a number of allegedly false claims about Carole, including the now-infamous notion she murdered her first husband Don Lewis 23 years ago and fed him to tigers. It is worth noting, the Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister took to social media this week to ask for any leads about the cold case!
Related: Joe Exotic’s Country Music Career Was FAKE! Details On The Real Singer!
In the article titled, Refuting Netflix Tiger King, the Baskins said their animal sanctuary was deeply misrepresented by production and deceived into participating in the show to begin with. The couple was under the impression they’d be exposing the big cat breeding business, cub exploitation, and the atrocities that take place at roadside zoos when they were approached for the docuseries by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chalking.
They said it instead focused on hearsay about her foundation and Lewis’ disappearance instead of making their version of Blackfish, the documentary that exposed abuse at SeaWorld:
“There are not words for how disappointing it is to see that the series not only does not do any of that, but has had the sole goal of being as salacious and sensational as possible to draw viewers. As part of that, it has a segment devoted to suggesting, with lies and innuendos from people who are not credible, that I had a role in the disappearance of my husband Don in 1997. The series presents this without any regard for the truth or in most cases even giving me an opportunity before publication to rebut the absurd claims. They did not care about truth. The unsavory lies are better for getting viewers.”
Carole and Howard insisted on the difference between them and longtime archnemesis Joe Exotic:
“We take in abandoned, abused, confiscated, and orphaned cats and give them a permanent home. A sanctuary does not breed, buy, sell, allow people to touch the cats, or put them through the stress of traveling offsite. It is basically a retirement home. Joe Exotic incessantly bred tiger cubs to [sic] he could make money charging people to pet and take photos with them. The cubs are torn from their mothers at birth, a torment to any mammal mother and infant. They are deprived of the antibodies in the mother’s milk that prevent disease that bottle formula does not have. There is no tracking of how many die, although some years ago Joe was investigated for the death of 23 cubs. They are deprived of sleep whenever there are customers wanting to pay. They are physically punished to diminish their natural behaviors.”
The pair added:
“Our cats live in large, spacious enclosures in a natural setting full of foliage. Joe’s lived in small barren chain link boxes with pebble floors that are bad for their feet.”
From there, they provided links and details explaining Big Cat Rescue’s philosophy on cub handling, animal cages, crowd sizes during sanctuary visits, making money and paying their workers, and why they don’t just let all of their tigers go free.
Breaking down the “Don” of it all…
Carole maintained her innocence and insisted Don’s alleged battle with Alzheimer’s disease made their relationship difficult. Despite this, and the domestic violence injunction he filed against her just weeks before vanishing, Carole said she did everything she could to cooperate with the investigators. She went on to reference Robert Moor’s Wondery podcast, Joe Exotic, and described it as much more “honest and fair in their treatment” of the case.
“Don was not easy to live with and like most couples, we had our moments. But I never threatened him and I certainly had nothing to do with his disappearance. When he disappeared, I did everything I could to assist the police. I encouraged them to check out the rumors from Costa Rica, and separately I hired a private investigator.”
From there, she outlined her own timeline of events leading up to Don’s disappearance and this video from the DailyBigCat YouTube account was also added to their post:
Carole spent most of her time on-camera bashing Joe’s claims and reiterating her company’s altruistic mission so it’s no surprise she’d follow up with even more materials in her defense. Between all of the memes and interesting articles like ours about the show, we think it’s worth checking out Carole’s post in full HERE.
Perezcious readers, does this change your thoughts on the Baskins?? Got any theories you’d like to throw into the mix about what could’ve happened to Don? Sound OFF in the comments (below)!
[Image via Netflix/YouTube]
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