The big cat activist and Joe Exotic’s nemesis had previously refused to speak to journalists following March’s release of the hit Netflix series
Unsurprisingly, one person who didn’t love Netflix’s hit series Tiger King is big cat activist and Joe Exotic’s nemesis, Carole Baskin, who has since described the documentary as “salacious and sensational”. Because of this, Baskin has refused to partake in any interviews since the show’s release – that is, until now.
The activist has seemingly been tricked into an interview by YouTube pranksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners. The pair managed to get Baskin to agree to a Zoom call after pretending she would be interviewed for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
In a video titled, “We Tricked Carole Baskin into Giving Us Her First Interview Since Tiger King”, Pieters and Manners say they posed as a production company for Fallon’s late-night show, and reached out to Baskin for an interview. After initially refusing, the activist agreed to a call on the condition that she wouldn’t be asked about Tiger King.
Once they finally had Baskin on the line, the pair used snippets of previous Fallon interviews to put together questions. Tackling the question of why Fallon wouldn’t be seen by Baskin, Pieters and Manners said it was simply because she was the only one being filmed for the interview.
In a brief chat, the activist discussed quarantine, the Big Cat Safety Act, and the future of Big Cat Rescue – the sanctuary run by Baskin and her husband, Harold. She also shared some exclusive photos and videos with ‘the show’ and gave some context about her flower crown – which she asserts “is not a flower crown”.
In a recent blog post on the Big Cat Rescue website, called “Refuting Netflix Tiger King”, Baskin criticised the “lies and innuendos” on the show, in which she was accused of killing her husband, Don, and feeding him to the tigers 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,” Baskin wrote. “They did not care about the truth. The unsavoury lies are better for getting viewers.”
Baskin also criticised Tiger King for making Exotic seem “loveable”. She said: “Separate from the murder for hire charges, there was overwhelming eye witness testimony from his own staff that Joe Exotic shot five healthy tigers in the head with a shotgun to make room for others.”
Watch Baskin’s interview above.