Tiger King on Netflix may focus on the life of Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, but the documentary also examines his great rival, Carole Baskin. She is the founder of the Big Cat Rescue animal sanctuary, and his attempt to hire someone to kill her is the reason he is now imprisoned.
Episode 3 of the Netflix documentary looks into the disappearance of Baskin's husband Don Lewis, who Maldonado-Passage alleges was killed by Baskin and fed to her tigers, allegations which she denies.
Though Tiger King does give time to Baskin to deny these allegations, in a 3,000 word blog post of her Big Cat Rescue site she hits out at the documentary for the episode and its recounting of the allegation.
In the post, she writes: "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 21 years ago. 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."
After refuting a number of the claims made in the documentary, and telling her side of events such as the restraining order Lewis tried to get against her, she sums up by saying: "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."
Baskin said in the blog post that she had been told by the documentary makers that they wanted to make a "big cat version of Blackfish"—a documentary that exposed the conditions sufered by animals at Seaworld.
However, in an Entertainment Weekly interview, producer Eric Goode revealed that he had some issues with Baskin's sanctuary. He said: "I think there's a lot of hypocrisy when it comes to Carol, and a lot of greenwashing. I think that what people should take away from the show and what one should do to protect tigers, in particular, big cats, is to support more programs in the wild… Carol keeps them [big cats] in cages for the duration of their lives, and I'm not sure that's the right thing to do."
Though this suggests there is no love lost between Goode and Baskin, fellow producer Rebecca Chaiklin said of Baskin: "I agree with Eric, but I do think at least she is raising awareness around this issue… She's smart, and she's on top of social media, and she figured out how to raise a lot of money. She's impressively intelligent, and she is helping in terms of the messaging that this is not a good practice and it's cruel to the animals."
Tiger King is streaming now on Netflix.
